


Now what?

by Maiale



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Additional Tags to Be Added, Angst, Discussion of mental disorder, Drama, F/M, Original Character(s), Past physical and psychological abuse, Self-Harm, Sexual Assault, Slow Romance, possible ooc behavior
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 35,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26243482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiale/pseuds/Maiale
Summary: After the prison is destroyed, Michonne and Daryl find themselves each on their own. Walker Apocalypse, but AU.* I do not own, nor do I profit from, anything related to The Walking Dead or any of its characters.
Relationships: Michonne/Daryl Dixon
Comments: 109
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I recently discovered the world of fan fiction. After enjoying the work of many fans, I decided to try my hand at it, and maybe give something back.
> 
> I figured I'd write one chapter and, if there's positive response, take it from there. 
> 
> I'll start with angst. If the story continues, I'll take a stab at incorporating other genres.

* * *

Michonne stood looking down at the Governor as he clutched his chest. She considered finishing him off, but decided against it, that would be too good a death, better to leave the sick bastard as a buffet for the walkers. The sound of his screams as he was torn apart, however, brought her no feelings of satisfaction, as she had expected. She just felt tired.

Looking around, there was nothing but destruction. Her brain kicked into survival mode and, before knowing exactly how it had happened, there she was again with two pet walkers. And then she spotted it: Hershel’s head, his _walker_ head.

She paused for a moment after pulling her katana out of his temple and suddenly her brain was filled with memories of everything she had been through. It was all happening again. And, again, she felt tired. Exhausted. She felt tired of feeling tired.

She made the decision right then and there: no more, she was done.

* * *

Daryl threw a hand grenade down the barrel of the tank’s main gun and waited for the son of a bitch to either burn or jump. He jumped. Exactly what Daryl was hoping for, now he got to put an arrow through the fucker’s fucking head.

He did, but it did nothing for him; the prison was still in pieces and his friends, no, his _family_ was still gone, every last one of them. His attention was brought back to his current situation by the sounds of the increasing number of walkers and he realized he was gonna have to run.

* * *

Michonne slowly became aware of her body and how it was hurting all over, especially her feet. It felt like she had been walking for days. In fact, she was walking right now. Surrounded by walkers!

Looking ahead, she saw that her pets were leading her, and not the other way around, like it had been with Mike and Terry. She was walking behind her walkers while walking among a group of walkers. She was dead. Wait, what? My god, she _was_ dead.

Was this what she wanted, to die? Nothing easier, really, just one swish of her katana and she would slide into nothingness. No more regrets, no more guilt, no more pain. Hadn’t that been her decision, “no more”?

Before she knew what she was doing, she decapitated her pets and started slicing through walkers, turning in all directions as they kept coming. She wasn’t in control, it was as if she was inside her head watching as her body did whatever it wanted, and it clearly wanted to live.

After all the walkers were gone, her brain caught up: she _did_ want to live. And, with that realization, she fell to the ground as a wall came tumbling down inside of her, releasing waves of tears past and present. Overwhelmed, she sat there for a long time and sobbed, her body shaking, until she was all cried out. 

That’s when she thought she heard something. 

* * *

Daryl somehow found himself seating against a tree, with absolutely no idea of how long it had been since he'd left the prison; could be hours, could be days. Regardless, there he was, staring at nothing, thinking about nothing, feeling nothing. He wanted to feel angry. He wanted to feel sad. He wanted to want to scream, to punch things, even to cry. But he didn’t feel, and he didn’t want; he just didn’t.

He absent-mindedly fumbled in his pockets and found some smokes. Lighting one, he took a long drag and waited for the buzz to kick in, but nothing came. He stared at the lit cigarette for some time and, when there was almost nothing left, he pressed it to his hand and watched as his skin burned. His brain was telling him that he should feel pain, but it just didn’t seem to register.

Until it did. And with the physical pain came the emotional one, releasing waves of tears past and present. Overwhelmed, he sat there for a long time and sobbed, his body shaking, until he was all cried out. 

That’s when he thought he heard something. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you think :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to everyone who is reading the story!!! 
> 
> I'm going to carry on. Hopefully it will bring entertainment to those who stumble across it.

* * *

Michonne jumped up, katana in hand, and strained her ears. After a few seconds, there it was again: a gunshot. And it sounded much closer than she had originally thought. Her first instinct was to run away from it, but that was immediately replaced by the image of this being someone else who had survived the prison attack and needed help.

Did she actually hope this was another person from the group, though? On the one hand, it obviously meant they were still alive; on the other, it sounded like she’d find them just as that was no longer the case, and she didn’t want to witness anyone else dying. When two further shots rang out in rapid succession all doubts were cast aside and she ran flat out through the woods; this could be Carl, or Daryl, or Rick. Or any of the others, her brain added as she felt ashamed of her favoritism.

Out of the corner of her eyes she started noticing a walker here, a walker there. Not good. Soon every one of them in a two-mile radius was going to show up. One more shot. Shit, she really had to find this person soon. A bit more running and she spotted the edge of the woods and, a little beyond that, a bunch of walkers descending on what looked to be a couple of people. Too late.

She couldn’t see enough to identify anyone, but all through the screams she tried holding on to the notion that this number of walkers wasn’t usually overwhelming if you were in a pair and knew what you were doing, which was the case with most in her group. Of course, the dead could always sneak up on you, but she somehow didn’t think these had been skilled people. Not like Daryl, for instance. Or Rick, Sasha, Glenn, Maggie, and even Carl, for that matter. Which still left everyone else, so not much of a comfort. Michonne’s musings were interrupted by a couple of walkers who had taken a keen interest in her. Fuck! She turned on her heel and bolted, looking over her shoulder every so often.

* * *

Daryl’s head spun as he heard it again. It was far off, but he knew it was a gunshot, he’d been around enough of them, even before all this. He grabbed his crossbow and started running toward the noise as another two shots went off. After a while, he came upon a very telling scene: a bunch of chopped up walker bodies and heads surrounding a small patch of trampled grass. Michonne!

His heart started to do a little dance but halted when he remembered the shots. He took a quick look around and easily spotting her trail sprinted along it. He couldn’t help but applaud her skills with that katana of hers; there had easily been twenty walkers back there. Damn! 

One more shot. Shit. He had to find her alive, it wouldn’t be fair to discover she had made it through the prison attack one minute and have to put her down the next. He picked up his speed just enough to make him skid a little as he stopped on his tracks. There went Michonne, running, walkers lagging behind. It shouldn’t take her long to lose them. The direction she was moving in was such that, if he ran to his left, he would cut her path just in front of her. That worked, she wouldn’t be alarmed this way, since she would be able to see him ahead.

Well, as he ducked under his crossbow to avoid her katana, he found out this was definitely _not_ the case.

* * *

Michonne looked back and saw that she was putting good distance between herself and the walkers. Excellent, she was getting tired of all this running. Turning her head forward she noticed something coming from her left and swung her katana. Just as she was about to bring it down full force she recognized the crossbow. Daryl! 

“ _Are_ – _You_ – _Crazy_!?!” she managed to both yell and whisper at the same time, all the while trying not to have a heart attack.

“No, I thought…”

“Never mind” she cut him off, “we have to move _now_!”

They kept going and eventually happened on a rickety barn. Questioning looks were exchanged. Daryl shrugged. Michonne looked at the building (if you could call it that) and let out a resigned sigh. The barn it was. They approached carefully, banged on the door and waited a bit. They’d normally bang a second time and wait some more, but she figured they’d be better off taking their chances inside, what with the walkers that might still be after them.

* * *

Daryl pointed his crossbow at the door and nodded his head to Michonne, who quickly pulled it open. They both went inside and saw that it was an open, empty space except for a sectioned off part that took up half the wall to their left. They moved to the door of the “room” and proceeded in the same way as they had done with the external entrance, finding the small space also free from walkers, but not from an assortment of things.

Before he could say or do anything, and much to his surprise, Michonne had him in an impossibly tight hug. He froze. This was not at all what he was used to coming from her. In fact, if he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he could even name a time when they had touched without it having been for a practical purpose, like tending to a wound or getting each other’s attention. He looked around, as if expecting someone to be watching them, and finally moved. Fuck it, if she was hugging him, he was hugging her back; it felt nice, plus he didn’t want to be rude, right?

* * *

Michonne held on to Daryl. She was vaguely aware of his hugging her back at some point, but didn’t care one way or the other, she was just happy he was there, and she wasn’t the only one who’d survived. After a while, she stepped away and smiled. As with the other handful of times he saw it, he was struck by how beautiful she looked when she did smile.

“You’re alive!”, she said.

“Well… yeah. You too.” That seemed kind of obvious.

“Don’t be a smartass, I’m serious”, she responded.

He got the impression it was best not to mention he was serious too. Instead, he asked “Are you ok? Who was shooting?”

“I’m ok. I couldn’t make out who was shooting, too many walkers around them, but I don’t think it was any of our people.” She hadn’t seen enough to think (or not think) any such thing, it was more hope than anything else, but she didn’t want to admit it. "Are _you_ ok?"

“Yeah, even if you did try to chop me up" he gave her the tiniest awkward smile. "Didja see anyone at the prison?”

“Rick. I heard him asking about Carl, but all I could think about was finishing off the Governor. Ended up deciding to let the walkers do the job.” She felt tired again.

“You sure they got him?”

“Yeah, I heard him screaming.” She answered. “Did you see anyone else?”

“Beth. She said somethin' about the kids and the bus, but I was concentratin' on the tank. Thought maybe if I stopped it we could still save the prison”, he said the last part with his head down in a disconsolate tone.

Michonne felt the urge to hug him again and Daryl welcomed it. They stayed like that for a long time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you think :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to everyone who is following along!!! 
> 
> This chapter is not from the characters' POV. I hope I didn't make it too confusing.

* * *

Michonne and Daryl were brought back to earth by some unfortunately familiar growls. Walkers really had the worst timing. Moving back to the main part of the barn they studied the available options. It seemed the best choice was to make a quick exit through a door on the right, which they did, easily dispatching the few dead who had chosen to approach the soon-to-be-collapsed structure from that side. Once the noises died down they reduced their speed, but, alas, this was not meant to be a slow day. Not even 5 minutes had gone by before they had to rush again as another group of walkers came at them from the left. They felt for those people earlier but couldn’t help cursing them for all the shooting.

Just as the two of them started thinking they might as well take on the 30 or so walkers, which they really didn’t feel like doing after all the running around, they came across a humongous white oak. Michonne halted and Daryl followed suit turning to her with a question. When she looked up he followed her line of sight and saw a tree house, for which they made a beeline and scrambled up a never-ending ladder. Once at the top Daryl saw it was hooked to the landing, but not nailed down, so he started pulling it up. He found that, even better than he’d thought, the ladder was actually meant to be pulled up, it had a way of folding on itself at certain parts. As soon as he was done, he flopped on the wood floor alongside Michonne.

When they recovered their ability to breath at a normal rate they started looking around. This was certainly not your run-of-the-mill tree house; someone’s parents had been (or most likely hired) very accomplished builders. In any case, a lot of money had been spent. From the outside it looked like a scaled-down two-story house with a wraparound porch and windows adorned with green curtains. The inside however had only one level which was high enough for Daryl to stand, even if only just, and contained some well-made smallish furniture. Off to one side sat three chairs with backpacks hanging on them and a round table covered by what had probably once been white linen but was now under so much dust that one couldn’t tell for sure. A vast amount of dust was all over everything, really. The other end of the space had three bean bag chairs with green cushions and a teeny-tiny coffee table. On the walls hung a few posters of comic book heroines and of Hollywood heartthrobs as well as a decorative pin board above the table. A bookcase housed a small battery-operated stereo, books, cd’s, board games, many, many comics, half-burned candles and some odds and ends.

The most interesting thing though was the second bookcase, or rather its contents: several unopened snacks and drinks. Even chocolate! Michonne almost did a little dance. They grinned at each other, grabbed a few water bottles, some edibles and headed for the table. He had chips and peanuts. She had chocolate bars and a twinkie. They remained quiet while eating, Michonne enjoying the sweets with almost obscene pleasure, which attracted a few glances from Daryl.

Once they were done, he lit a cigarette and she went about examining the space more closely. The thing about the two of them was that after so many months spent together looking for the Governor they could almost communicate telepathically, or so it looked like to others. It wasn’t telepathy, of course, it was being aware of someone’s reactions to such an extent that even the most subtle shifts, such as the slightest tensing of a muscle, the quickest darting of an eye or the quietest drawing of a breath, would be perceptible. And it was so instinctive that even they didn’t realize they were doing it. This, however, only seemed to apply to situations of danger, which is why they had been able to navigate the woods from the barn to the tree house in tandem without so much as a word, but, now that things slowed down, found themselves each in their own heads, and not in each other’s. They didn’t mind the silence, it felt easy being quiet together. But every now and again they took a stab at what they felt was an acceptable amount of small talk, and Daryl decided this was a good time for it.

“Watcha think this was?” he asked, glancing around.

“Amazons of the South.”

“Huh??”

She chuckled at the confused look on his face and pointed to the pin board. He followed her finger and examined it, finding a bunch of things he would call ‘girly’. He kept moving his head up and saw large letters cut from blue, red and gold paper that spelled ‘Amazons of the South’.

“What’s that?” He still looked confused.

Again, she pointed to the board and, again, he followed her finger. There was a sheet of paper on the bottom left corner that read:

CLUB RULES

1) Amazons must keep all promises to other Amazons

2) Amazons must defend all other Amazons

3) Amazons can’t tell the secrets of other Amazons

4) No boys allowed in the Clubhouse

(Rule number 4 was crossed out and replaced by “Some boys are OK”)

“Amazons?” The puzzled expression remained on his face.

This time she pointed to one of the posters on the wall and Daryl lost it.

“Wouldja stop pointin’ to things and just answer the damned question!?!”

“OK, OK, calm down.” Since she couldn’t keep herself from laughing altogether, it was too entertaining, she added an “I’m sorry”.

“It looks like Jenny, Lilly and Becca…” she pointed to the names on the board and he scowled “…formed a club and this is where they met. I’m guessing the name of the club came from Wonder Woman” she pointed back to the poster she had indicated before and he scowled once more. He was going to lose it again soon. “She was an Amazon, if I’m not mistaken.”

“She was a forest?” he asked, quickly adding “and dontcha dare point nowhere again!”

She took a deep breath to keep from laughing once more and said “I won’t, don’t worry. Amazons are from Greek mythology; they were supposed to be a tribe of warrior women. I’m very impressed that these girls named their club after them. I think I would have liked meeting their parents.”

“Warrior women, huh? If them girls were here you could show ‘em a real life one” he said before moving outside to smoke another cigarette, his cheeks turning two shades above pink.

Michonne was the confused one now. The comment itself, clearly high praise for him (and for her too), was puzzling enough since he wasn’t exactly known for distributing compliments. But what really had her wondering was that he seemed embarrassed by saying it, she thought she even saw him blush. Of course, the man did look embarrassed on a regular basis, it just seemed to be in his nature.

She shook her head, waving her thoughts aside, and joined him on the porch asking “You know what this means, right?”

“No, what?” he asked.

“If these girls met here, they couldn’t have lived far, so there has to be at least one house close by. Judging by this set up it’s likely to have a full pantry and a lot of other useful stuff. If it hasn’t already been looted, that is.”

“Great, we’ll go lookin’ tomorrow, not much daylight left and I don’t wanna move another muscle today.”

‘What a shame’ flashed through Michonne’s mind, taking her by surprise. It was her turn to blush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you think :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to everyone who is reading!!! 
> 
> OC's will now join the story, but I'm not sure for how long.

* * *

Michonne lied on the floor with her thoughts. She was so happy she’d found Daryl. Sure, she’d made it by herself before, but there had been Mike and Terry to talk to, which had kept her sane. Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure the term “sane” applied when the rest of the sentence included talking to dead people. The truth was she’d taken the easy way out, isolated herself to avoid the chance of being hurt, even after finding the prison. But in doing so she’d ended up more dead than alive. Daryl had done the difficult thing, letting himself care for people. Because that’s what he did, even if it didn’t look like it at first glance, even if he didn’t see it himself. And now he could help her do it too.

* * *

Daryl lied on the floor with his thoughts. He was so happy he’d found Michonne, he didn’t know what he would have done if he’d been the only one left. He knew she’d made it by herself for many months early on, and he’d always thought he would be able to do it if there was no other choice, but he’d never really thought about what that meant. Only when faced with the prospect did he realize the strength and willpower that were necessary to carry on, and he wasn’t sure he had it in him, not like she did. But now she could help him find out.

* * *

Early next morning found Michonne pulling up the ladder while reflecting on the bathroom logistics, or lack thereof, that came with a tree house. She walked into the room and saw Daryl was awake.

“Good morning” she said, receiving a grunt in response.

She took a lysol wipe from the package on the bookshelf (good thing there was also hand lotion) as he grabbed a water bottle. He started for outside but hesitated at the doorway for a few seconds before turning back to her with a pleading look.

She shook her head, let out a sigh and said in an annoyed tone “Fine. Just make sure you aim _away_ from the porch.”

She flopped on one of the bean bags thinking, not for the first time, of how this particular ability was such an advantage in this new world. When he came back, she pointed at the wipes and got an eye roll, which she countered with a scowl.

* * *

After complying with her order, Daryl grabbed a granola bar and another water bottle. He looked at her and, receiving a nod, handed her the same things before sitting at the table. When they were done, he lit a cigarette, looked around and asked “Didja have a club too? When you was little?”

“No. But if I’d had one it would have looked nothing like this”, she chuckled. “Mine was your normal childhood, playing out on the street with the other kids. Especially with my best friend Gabrielle, we were practically joined at the hip” she said and paused smiling, like she was going through some happy memories in her head. “Another thing is you would have never found all this candy anywhere near me. My father was _obsessed_ with teeth, always going on about how no one had ever looked after his, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake with mine. In my house it was 'brush after every meal', 'floss before bed' and 'no sugary food'; if I wanted anything sweet, I had to sneak around. My mother agreed, but mostly about the no candy part; I was a chubby kid and she was afraid I would gain weight.”

“You was chubby?” he asked incredulously.

“Yeah, until I was 4 or 5. I don’t really remember it, of course, but there were plenty of family albums around the house.”

Daryl tried to picture a little chubby Michonne with pigtails but had difficulty; in fact, he found it hard to imagine her as a kid period, and he wondered why. Maybe it was because they’d never spoken about much aside from the Governor and killing walkers, so he didn’t think of her as having a “before life”, as he called it. The only exception was that he got the feeling she liked kids, because she was always looking for stuff to give to Carl. Or maybe she just liked Carl.

And now here she was telling him a bunch of things about her family. When the couple of girls he’d sort of dated before the turn had done that, he’d been uncomfortable, hadn’t known what to say or do. But with ‘Chonne he found he didn’t mind listening, he was actually enjoying it, wanting to hear more. Maybe he would ask again sometime.

* * *

Michonne wasn’t sure why she was sharing these things with Daryl. She hadn’t done that with anyone since Mike, back when he was still the Mike she’d loved. Perhaps it was just being in this place, one that was left untouched by the harshness of the present world, one that spoke of a happy, carefree childhood. Or possibly it was because he seemed genuinely interested in what she was saying. In any case, she realized she missed it. And not only talking but listening as well, she wanted to hear him tell her about himself.

“What about you?” she asked smiling. “Did you and your friends go around in your bikes terrorizing the neighborhood? That’s what the boys in my street did.”

She could immediately tell her question was not welcome.

He avoided her eyes, started chewing the side of his thumb and after a few seconds said quietly “it was fine, normal, like you.” He walked outside. 

She was sorry she’d asked; he was clearly not in the same sharing mood as herself. She could understand, she would normally have been uncomfortable with his question and given a short answer like he did. Well, maybe someday he _would_ be in a sharing mood and it would be her turn to listen. 

She waited a few minutes before following him out, where she found him finishing another cigarette. “Should we discuss plans?” she asked in a businesslike tone, trying to bring things back to familiar territory.

“You think anyone survived?”

“I… yes, I think so. I mean, statistically speaking, it would make sense.”

“Right… well, then we go lookin’ for ‘em.”

“Great plan, you have any specifics to go with that?”

He scowled at her and said, “don’t hear you sayin’ nothing.”

She shook her head laughing quietly and said “I think we should look for that house and see if it has maps of the area. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find something a bit more substantial to eat, and enough water to clean up. A girl can dream.”

“Sounds good to me.”

They crammed the food, drinks, wipes, hand lotion, matches and a couple of candles in two backpacks. He handed her Wonder Woman and took Scarlet Witch.

* * *

Daryl had cringed when he’d seen the bags, but food was food, and they had to carry it somehow. He gave ‘Chonne the Amazon one and ended up with a woman dressed in red blowing things up; better than having a picture of some boy band hanging on him, at any rate.

They started walking and he marked a few trees as they went along in case they needed to go back. Unlike the day before, things were remarkably quiet, so they were able to walk with a purpose and soon arrived at the predicted house. He tried to contain a groan but couldn’t help it. When Michonne looked at him enquiringly, he whispered “it’s huge, it’ll take forever to clear.” She rolled her eyes, but he thought she agreed with him.

* * *

Michonne knew Daryl was right, but it also meant an increased chance of finding things they could use. They had approached the property from the back which was surrounded by a living fence. After some looks and eyebrow movements were exchanged, they decided to take their time walking the perimeter to assess the situation. The backyard had a covered deck, a swimming pool half-filled with possibly the grossest water she had ever seen, a BBQ area, a lot of fancy furniture and even a fire pit. The front boasted what had once been a well-manicured garden, a smallish covered porch and a triple car garage. The telltale sign, however, were the expansive glass doors and windows with closed curtains all around; there were, or had recently been, people staying there. Shit.

Not seeing other houses around as an alternative, they chose to hide and watch the front door. After about 4 or 5 hours their patience was rewarded when two men in their mid-twenties, one white with dark hair and one black with a shaved head, rode away on bicycles. They figured if they were going in, this was the time to do it. Since they hadn’t seen the men lock the front door, they decided to try it; they were in luck, it opened as they slowly and carefully turned the knob. After Daryl closed it, they started going through the house as furtively as possible. This was indeed going to take forever. 

They were standing in an entrance hall with a dining room to the right and three closed doors to the left. They went for these first and found a closet (where they left the bags), a powder room and a study, all empty and with no signs of recent occupation, as was the case with the dining room. Going back through the hall they came to a big open-plan space with the kitchen as well as the living and family rooms. Just as they were making for what looked to be the pantry, a silenced shot zoomed over their heads hitting an upper cupboard, causing them to quickly duck behind the kitchen island.

“Step away from the dog or I _will_ shoot again, and I won’t be aiming at the cabinetry!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you think :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to everyone who is following along!!!

* * *

Michonne looked at Daryl and saw the confusion she was feeling reflected on his face. Dog? What dog?

“We ain’t got no dog” he said in an irritated voice.

“Let her go, I won’t ask again!” the woman said.

“I done toldja we ain’t got no fuc…”

Michonne interrupted him with a hand on his arm and a ‘let me handle this’ look.

“Hi there” she said in a calm but slightly raised voice, so the other woman could hear her from their ducking-behind-the-counter position. “I’m Michonne and my friend is Daryl. We’re not here to hurt you… or your dog” she quickly added the last part. “The thing is, we don’t see any dogs. Tell us what you want us to do.”

After a few seconds, the voice responded “Alright. She’s probably hiding under the couch because of you. Just… move around to the side of the island, the one closest to the hall, and she should come when I call. _Don’t_ spook her!”

“We won’t, don’t worry” Michonne said reassuringly.

She turned to Darryl, who was giving her a ‘let’s cut this bullshit and take her out now’ look, to which she responded with a ‘calm down and bear with me’ one. She tugged at his vest and he rolled his eyes before following her as instructed, letting out an exasperated sigh.

“Alright, we moved.”

“Come here Elie, it’s OK, come with me” the woman said encouragingly. “Good, Elie, just come on over” she added in a voice one tends to use with a toddler.

They heard four small paws scuffle across the kitchen floor, the sound of two kisses and then “Eleanor Rigby, I’ve told you to always _stay close_! Go, downstairs, and wait for me there.” The words ‘downstairs’ and ‘wait’ were carefully enunciated.

Daryl rolled his eyes again and gave Michonne a “Really!?!” look, to which she, again, responded with a ‘calm down and bear with me’ one.

“OK, you can go now.” The woman seemed to be addressing them again, her tone of voice completely transformed to a level one. “There are a couple of water bottles and some protein bars in the cabinet next to the fridge, you can take those. Bye.”

“Wait” Michonne said, “we want to get a better idea of this area. Can you give us any information? Do you perhaps have maps? We just want to talk; we won’t hurt you. Or Elie” she added in an attempt to improve their chances.

There was silence for a while. When they started thinking the woman had left, she said “Oh, alright” sounding like someone who has given in against their better judgement. “Go sit on the couch.”

Daryl shot Michonne a ‘please let me take her out’ look, but, for the third time, she responded with a ‘calm down and bear with me’ one. He was getting tired of that look. He muttered a complaint that included a few choice words and followed her to the damn couch. At least they weren’t asked to drop their weapons. Which, now he thought about it, was so unbelievably stupid it was making him fell uneasy.

“Elie, come back up” they heard before the woman finally showed herself, coming through a doorway located at the corner of the kitchen, a tiny dog with short fur trotting behind. Honestly, in Daryl’s mind this didn’t even count as a dog.

She was in her mid-twenties, like the two men they had seen earlier, was about 5’6”, had long black hair arranged in a braid and was so pale it looked like she hadn’t seen the sun in years. She was dressed in what might very well be the least appropriate piece of clothing for an apocalypse: a short flowy white dress. And she was barefoot. And she had a purse! How the hell had this idiot sneaked up on them?

She grabbed the water bottles and protein bars and put everything on the coffee table, motioning for them to help themselves. She then took what looked to be four baby monitors out of the purse and propped them up in front of her before flopping on the other couch, gun still in hand but not pointed at them. The ‘dog’ settled beside her.

“No maps in the house that I know of. You can check the study if you want. But only after the boys return. In the meantime, what do you want to know?” she said in a ‘let’s get this over with’ tone.

“Where are we exactly?” Michonne asked.

“We’re in middle-of-nowhere, Meriwether County, Georgia. The closest thing even resembling an actual town would probably be Senoia, 15 to 20 miles north I’d say. If you don’t blink, you might see Alvaton and Haralson on your way there.”

“Is it just you and them two boys?” Daryl asked.

“And Elie.”

“Right… and you, um, four been here since the turn?”

“The turn?”

“Yeah, you know, when everythin’ went to hell?”

“Yes, we’ve been here since the turn, as you call it. This was my house, still is I suppose, and they were staying for a few days. Not sure about things going to hell, though.”

“What do you mean, ‘not sure’? Didja not go outside?”

“I have, on occasion.” She was now using a matter-of-fact tone. “Jonathan and Lucas go out whenever they feel it’s necessary but I’m mostly OK with what we’ve got here. As for things going to hell, I’ve heard this before but, from what I’ve seen, what they tell me and what the news showed in the beginning, it’s just a different kind of fucked up world from before; no more, no less. People who think of it as being worse do so because they’re part of the group that got the short end of the stick this time around. The four of us don’t fall into that group at the moment. It’ll happen if we can’t get more stuff after what we have here ends, but we still have some time before that happens. We’ll just have to wait and see how things go.” She seemed completely unperturbed by any of what she was saying.

“You’re not serious?” Michonne asked. 

“I am.” Her voice had progressed to monotonous, she almost looked bored. “Not having food, water, shelter? No electricity? No access to doctors or medication? Living in fear of being harmed? Watching people die every other day? That has always been true for much, if not most, of the population. Last statistic I remember, around half of the world lived on under $6 per day. That’s 3.5 billion people, 1 billion of which had to make do with less than $2 per day. Forget living, you can barely call that surviving, if at all. Now, don’t get me wrong, I was as much a part of the problem as anyone else, probably more so, sitting around having long discussions about the injustices of the world all the while living in a six-bedroom house full of things I don’t even use and doing nothing whatsoever to fix the problem; just donating a couple hundred dollars of my parents' money and a couple hours of my time twice a year to try and trick my brain into not feeling guilty. Oh, and before? You couldn’t just walk into stores and houses to look for what you needed, like we do now. There was no settling somewhere to start growing food.”

It looked like she had finished, but, after a few seconds, she added “Don’t worry, though, in a few centuries the world will be right back to the same kind of crap we were used to. Either that or we’ll go extinct. With any luck, it will be the second option.” This time she did finish and started examining one of the baby monitors.

Michonne sat there at a complete loss for words, Daryl looking like he was in the same situation. That was probably not a bad thing, though, since the woman seemed to have more than enough for 10 people.

Michonne was also having trouble figuring out how she was feeling. Sad because of the reality the woman had described? Ashamed because some of what she’d said hit a little too close to the mark for comfort? Angry at the other’s self-righteousness? Annoyed because of the woman’s self-pity? Looking at Daryl’s face she saw that anger was winning his internal battle, so she moved to calm him, but they both got sidetracked by the sounds of people at the front door.

“Jonathan? Lucas? I’m in the living room. Everything’s OK, don’t be alarmed, but we have two guests.” 

Next thing anyone new they heard a loud thud before the white guy with dark hair came running into the room and went straight for the woman. “Marissa! What happened? Are you OK?” he asked while hugging her.

“Calm down Jonathan, I’m fine” she said, then turned to the other guy, presumably Lucas, who had just sat by her other side, and added “I did say everything was OK, right? I didn’t imagine it?” He gave her a reproachful look and squeezed her hand.

When both men seemed satisfied that she was indeed fine, they turned their attention to Michonne and Daryl.

“Who are you? What do you want here?” Jonathan asked, scowling. Lucas was also looking none too happy.

Michonne gave Daryl’s arm a calming pat and took upon herself the role of spokesperson, which left him fuming. When was he going to be allowed to speak?

“My name is Michonne and this is Daryl. We’re just looking for information about the area, we got separated from our group and are trying to find them. We didn’t know the house was occupied, so we came in to see if there were maps, and maybe a place to stay the night.”

“Not exactly close to being night yet.” Lucas observed.

“And how did you end up here with them?” Jonathan asked Marissa. “Did you come upstairs by yourself again?” he asked reprovingly.

“I… yes. I’m not useless, you know. I cornered them in the kitchen. Well, not cornered really, but they had to duck behind the island.”

Lucas cast an appraising look at Michonne and Daryl before turning back to her “How the hell did you manage that?”

She shrugged and said “They had Elie. Or so I thought.”

Michonne would have to excuse him, but Daryl had finally had enough. “I hate to interrupt, but do you have any fucking maps or not?”

The three idiots looked over as if they were surprised he could talk, for which he couldn’t exactly blame them, what with Michonne never letting him speak.

Marissa recovered first and answered, “Like I said, you’d have to check the study.”

Now Lucas was the one who seemed to have had enough. He turned to Daryl and Michonne saying “Stay here. Or go if you want. In any case, we’ll be right back.” He stood and walked off to the kitchen area. Jonathan got up, put all the baby monitors and the gun in the purse, offered a hand to the girl, who took it, and they followed their friend, pocket-sized dog bringing up the rear.

“These people are fuckin’ idiots!” Daryl said to Michonne.

“That’s the understatement of the year. But they don’t strike me as being dangerous. Did you get that from them?”

“I dunno. Maybe they’re not really idiots, they’re just pretendin’. I mean, you think anyone this stupid would still be alive? It’d have to be a goddamn miracle.” 

“I know. Although they _are_ out of the way and don’t seem to get out much. Which in turn raises the question of where their food and water is coming from.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the return of the others.

Jonathan looked at Marissa and asked, “Are you sure?”

She shrugged and said “Why not? They could have killed me a thousand times over if they'd wanted.”

This had both men looking at her in frustration. Lucas stopped Jonathan before he even started to speak by muttering, “later.” He turned to Michonne and Daryl and said “We live downstairs, in the basement apartment, and we have a couple of maps there. You are welcome to come look at them, and to stay the night, if you want. We’ll go back to the kitchen while you discuss it, you have 5 minutes.”

Michonne wasn’t getting a danger vibe from these people. Unbelievably stupid, wholly unprepared and just plain weird? Sure. But not dangerous.

Daryl hated to admit it, but he felt confused. These idiots behaved so differently from what he was used to that he was having a hard time reading them. They seemed harmless enough, although the mere idea of being locked with them in a basement was already driving him crazy, so maybe they weren’t so harmless after all.

They looked at each other and she shrugged, giving him a ‘let’s try it’ look. He hesitated, but ended up nodding in agreement, figuring the two of them were more than capable of taking down the others if it came to it, or if they got unbearably annoying.

“OK, we’ll take you up on your offer, thanks.” Michonne said. They grabbed their bags from the hall closet and followed the other ~~three~~ four down to the basement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you think :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to anyone still reading!! 
> 
> I want to apologize for taking longer to update then I have before, but I got stuck. I hope you enjoy what I managed to come up with.
> 
> I also want to say that I'm not familiar with a lot of the things that I need to include in the story if I'm to try and make it interesting. I try to research as much as possible, but there isn't always time to do it properly, so I ask that you excuse all the mistakes that I'm sure to make. Thank you!! 
> 
> P.S.: I like playing around with floor plans, so I included one of the basement to give a better idea of what I was thinking.

* * *

* * *

Jonathan switched on a flashlight and went ahead, followed by Marissa (carrying Elie), Michonne, Daryl and Lucas. They stopped while Jonathan opened a door at the bottom of the stairs, and Lucas tapped Daryl on the shoulder. “Hold this for me please?” he asked handing over a flashlight of his own. Daryl pointed it back where they’d come from and saw him locking a door before closing a second one, which looked quite heavy, and finishing off with a gate.

When they’d all cleared the stairs, Lucas closed another heavy door with a gate behind it and they walked through a doorway into an open-plan space. Michonne and Daryl were taken aback, that wasn’t what they’d expected when they’d heard ‘basement apartment’. And the lights were on! As they looked around, Daryl noticed Lucas closing some more doors behind them.

“You have electricity?” Michonne asked as Jonathan walked off towards a hallway without so much as a backward glance.

“Yeap. And running water, courtesy of my stepfather’s fascination-turned-obsession with living off-grid. Ironically enough, he first got interested in the idea while watching shows about tiny houses.” Marissa said. “We can go into details later if we decide we want to chit-chat. Anyways, let’s get the tour out of the way. This, I suppose, is what you’d call the living area: dining to our left, kitchen back there, Jonathan’s computers to the right and sitting room after that. The hallway leads to a powder room, laundry closet and three bedrooms with baths.”

Daryl grunted. Powder room?

“So, what would you like to start with? Shower, rest, food, those maps, chit-chat? Something else I’ve forgotten?”

The woman was speaking so fast his head was spinning. Once he was able to gather his thoughts, the first thing that came to his mind was ‘if ‘Chonne says chit-chat I’ma take my chances outside.’ Thankfully, though, she seemed to be thinking along the same lines as he was. After they exchanged a couple of looks, she answered “Maps, thank you.”

“Lucas, amore, would you be so kind?”

“Sure, I’ll be right back.” Lucas answered, giving Marissa a concerned look before heading in the same direction as Jonathan.

“And I’ll go organize a bedroom for you. It will be the one on the right, next to the laundry. Meanwhile, make yourselves at home. There’s water and some fruit in the fridge and other stuff in the cupboards.” After saying this Marissa left, Elie at her heels. The little dog followed her everywhere, even if she only moved an inch, it was as if the woman had a little dog-shaped shadow.

Soon they heard Marissa and Lucas talking before he returned. “I’m directed to tell you that there are clean clothes on the bed for your use” he said in a mock formal voice. “Now, on to the important stuff. This is what we have” he continued while putting a geography book and a road atlas of Georgia on the table. They concentrated on the last.

“We’re here.” Lucas indicated a spot between Senoia and Manchester. They were indeed in the middle of nowhere. “There isn’t much of anything around, that was the main reason for her stepfather choosing this place; he wasn’t what you’d call a people person. Any idea of where you need to go?”

At this point they were interrupted by some rather loud shouting. It sounded like Jonathan was letting Marissa know exactly how he felt about her trip upstairs and she was responding in kind.

“He never learns” Lucas said as he shook his head. “I’d better get in there.” He started walking away but turned and said “Oh, all the doors are locked, so if you need to go back up for some reason come knocking, we’ll be in the room at the end of the hall. If she doesn’t kick us out, that is. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” he trailed off before leaving.

When Daryl and Michonne heard “I FORBID YOU! ESPECIALLY NOW!” (Jonathan’s voice) and “YOU _FORBID_ ME?” (Marissa’s voice), they grabbed some water and fruit and moved over to the sofa, setting the road atlas on the coffee table.

“The prison was around here” Daryl pointed just south of Newnan. “We walked southeast, as I figured. Looks like we only ended up ‘bout 20 miles away, we musta moved in circles a bit. Truth is I don’t remember much from before findin’ you.” He looked at her.

“Neither do I.” She answered, looking back and holding his gaze for a few heartbeats.

They broke eye contact and stared at the map for a while before Daryl asked quietly “where do we even start?”

Michonne heaved a sigh and answered “I don’t know.”

After a little while longer she added “why don’t we get cleaned up, eat something and maybe get a couple hours of rest? It might help if we start feeling like humans again.”

“OK. Let’s go see this bedroom with bath.” He said. “At least I don’t hear no more shoutin’.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

* * *

When they got to the room, Michonne said “You go first.”

“You sure? I don’t mind waitin’.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I want to look around.”

“Alright” he said before picking up a towel and the clothes from the bed and heading to the bathroom. He stepped back out and said “your father would be happy, there’s everythin’ here you need to clean your teeth.”

She smiled and thought ‘Yes!’ before setting out to explore the room. As she’d expected, it was spacious, the furniture being of high quality and latest design. Everything was neat and tidy; aside from some discreet personal touches, one might think the room wasn’t used at all, just sat there ready for guests that wouldn’t come. Except now they had come.

There was a desk in the corner with a few essentials on it. The drawers housed a laptop, various papers, office supplies and some odds and ends. Next to it sat a large TV atop a horizontal bookcase which, Michonne was extremely excited to see, held a lot of medical books. The opposite wall had an armchair with a foot stool and a very comfortable looking bed between two side tables, the drawers of which contained the tv remote, flashlights, batteries, some over the counter medication, papers, a couple of books and a few mismatched items. Lastly, she opened the wardrobe and found it full of men’s clothes.

As she closed the doors Daryl came out of the bathroom and she was dumbstruck. Only when he looked himself over, slightly concerned, and said “what? Somethin’ wrong?” did she realize she had been staring. She actually liked his usual disheveled, scruffy, I’ve-just-killed-20-walkers look. But she was now learning that there was a lot to be said for a fresh-out-of-the-shower, t-shirt-and-jeans-clad Daryl with water still dripping from his hair.

“Nothing wrong whatsoever. You clean up nicely. My turn now.” was her answer. His face flushed as she picked up her things from the bed and moved to the bathroom smiling.

* * *

Daryl absentmindedly walked to the bed and laid down. ‘Chonne thought he looked nice? That was a whole new territory for him, no one had ever thought he looked nice, much less someone like her. He’d always thought she was good-looking (damn hot, if he was being honest). It had been confusing in the beginning, what with Merle’s stupid ideas rolling around in his head, but he’d soon realized what a prick his brother had been, even if he did love him, and started noticing her more. When he’d first seen her smile, he had almost fallen over she’d looked so beautiful. And now she was telling him he cleaned up nicely. He continued along this line of thought until he eventually dozed off.

* * *

Michonne was looking at a dress. A dark green dress. A short, loose, spaghetti-strapped, dark green dress. That’s what the woman had left her, a dress. Nothing to be done about it now, she wasn’t going to keep wearing her dirty clothes, so she put on the damn dress. But not for long. She threw open the door, found Daryl’s clothes and quickly walked to the laundry closet she had heard Marissa mention. The woman did say they were to make themselves at home.

* * *

Daryl woke up suddenly and caught a glimpse of someone whooshing out of the room. Seeing the bathroom door open he figured it must have been Michonne and started for the hallway but stopped short. It was now his turn to be dumbstruck and hers to say “what?” This, however, didn’t seem to register with him. What did register was how different yet equally attractive she looked. And as soon as she smiled, ‘attractive’ turned into ‘absolutely beautiful’.

* * *

They walked into the ‘living area’ to find Marissa in the kitchen.

“Oh hi, did you find all you needed? If I missed anything, let me know and I’ll see if we have it” she said, still speaking too fast for Daryl’s liking.

“Everything was perfect, thank you very much.” Michonne answered. “It’s so good to take a proper shower.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. The food is almost done, it’s just pasta but Lucas is a great cook, so it's always tasty” Marissa said. “Here he is”, she added as he came out of a door behind the dining table carrying a few boxes of spaghetti. 

“Hi, I’m about finished with dinner. Have a seat.” Lucas said and put the noodles in a pot of boiling water. It was all so normal it felt abnormal

“Watch the sauce for me?” he asked Marissa, giving her a peck on the cheek before walking towards another door, this one between the computers and the entrance.

Michonne and Daryl sat at the table and poured themselves some water from a glass pitcher. As they did so, Jonathan came in from the hallway, said “hi” and walked over to Marissa, who was stirring the contents of another pot. The two of them had a whispered conversation and hugged. Daryl hopped this meant no more shouting. Michonne thought this would probably mean a different kind shouting.

* * *

Once they were done with the pasta, which was indeed very good, Marissa produced a bowl of fresh berries for dessert.

“I’m sorry but I’ve got to ask, how do you have fresh fruit?” Michonne said.

“Hydroponic system and bonsai.” Jonathan answered.

“Huh?” Daryl this time.

“We grow produce and bonsai trees in that room” Marissa said pointing at the second door Lucas had come out of. “Come, we’ll show you.”

Daryl had never seen anything like it before. There were what looked like PVC pipes and plastic bins with tubes going in and out all over the place, and they had all kinds of different stuff growing in, on and out of them. He thought he even saw a couple of watermelons hanging on some nets. There were also big containers with bubbling water, a worktable, a bunch of bottles with liquids and powders, a few buckets with some foul-smelling liquid, a lot of different looking light bulbs and, in the corner, a collection of tiny trees. He could hear a constant low buzzing sound.

“Wow, how did you manage all this?” Michonne asked.

“Dumb luck.” Jonathan said.

“I think they might want a bit more information than that, Jonathan.” Marissa said, petting his arm. “Come, let’s have a look at the other two rooms and then we’ll sit down for that chit-chat, if you want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed :) Please let me know what you think, your comments are a welcome incentive for me to keep writing.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading :)
> 
> I want to apologize once again for taking a long time to update, I haven't managed to get "unstuck" yet. Thank you for bearing with me!

* * *

Michonne’s and Daryl’s jaws dropped when they walked through the door behind the dining table and found a large space containing rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with non-perishable food and all kinds of other supplies, from toiletries to car batteries, as well as a number of chest freezers. It was almost like a mini Walmart, minus the produce section. Which, as it happens, they had just visited.

The last room they were shown was the smallest of the three and housed two very long bathtubs filled with bubbling water and little fish, as well as three tall round plastic containers, a few 50gal bins and another worktable. There was a lot in the space that was identical to the first one they’d visited: tubes and pipes going in and out of everything, a bunch of bottles, buckets with smelly water, different looking light bulbs and the constant low buzzing sound.

Back in the living room Daryl and Michonne took the 2-seater as Jonathan and Marissa settled on the larger couch.

“Can I interest anyone in a drink? We have wine, scotch and, for some reason, blue curaçao. There’s also water and lemonade” Lucas offered.

“Scotch” said Jonathan.

“Win…” Marissa started before Lucas cut her short saying “you’re getting lemonade”, followed by Jonathan’s “no complaining.” She pouted.

“Water” Daryl answered. These people had so far been fine but getting drunk was not the best of ideas. Michonne, thinking along the same lines, chose lemonade.

Once everyone had glasses in hand and the coffee table had bottles of all available liquids for refills, Lucas took a seat next to Marissa and motioned for her to start.

“So, like Jonathan said, we got incredibly lucky. The short version is we had ideal shelter, information, and the resources to act on it.” Marissa said.

“I’d call it fate if I believed in the idea” Lucas added.

“No such thing as fate” Jonathan said matter-of-factly.

“We know dear” Marissa again. “Anyways, the fact is that everything converged to give us the best chance of survival. A positive perfect storm, if you will. Jonathan and I like to experiment with calculating the probability of it all having happened simultaneously and the results are always quite interesting.”

“Interesting might not be my word of choice” Lucas said ironically. Marissa gave his arm a mock slap, which earned her a grin.

“Back to what I was saying, the ideal shelter is obviously this house, for which we have my stepfather, my mother and the laborers who actually built it to thank.” Marissa said. “Stepdad chose early retirement in this out of the way spot, which means almost no people around, living or otherwise. You're the first ones to come into the house as far as we know. Also, like I mentioned upstairs, he decided his life’s mission was to turn the place into a self-sustaining property. Throughout the years he put in two wells, battery banks, a hydroponic garden, a miniature fish farm, a worm hotel, some other types of composting piles and a bunch of systems: solar panels, wind energy, rainwater collection, grey water recycling and geothermal energy. There was always so much going on I’m sure I forgot a few things. I used to joke that he’d really gone off the deep end, so I had to eat my words when most of it became essential. All of it would have been useful, of course, but some we couldn’t keep going from down here.”

After refilling her glass, she continued “my mother, on her side, is responsible for our comfortable living quarters, as she’s the one who insisted on having the basement finished. Mom also argued that, if she was moving away from civilization, the house had to be well secured, so we have bullet resistant glass, sensors, safes, a panic room and a security camera system. This last feature has come in handy, especially after Jonathan tinkered with it and somehow threw baby monitors into the mix.”

“Which goes to show that all the technology in the world is of absolutely no use if two idiots forget to lock the door while the third idiot decides to take a lone, leisurely trip upstairs” Lucas said.

“Speak for yourself, I spotted them in the monitors. Spotted the two of you coming back as well” Marissa countered.

“And you didn’t hide?” Jonathan scolded her, Lucas throwing him a warning look.

“We’ve been through this, I wasn’t going anywhere without Elie” she said petting the little dog on her lap. 

“Right” Lucas said cutting the others short. “And we just happened to be here, it wasn’t Marissa’s usual time to visit her family.”

“I thought this was her house and you two was the ones visitin’” Daryl said. 

“Did she say that?” Lucas asked giving Marissa a reproving look. “She likes to maintain this was her home, but it was actually up north, with the two of us.” The woman drew breath to start speaking but he put his hand up signaling her to stop and began ticking off on his fingers “one: if your name has been on the lease for over five years it’s no longer temporary housing, doesn’t matter if you’re not working to pay the rent; two: it’s not like you were sitting around doing nothing, you were busy with your dissertation; three: your mother wasn’t sending her own money, it was yours. Any other arguments for me to refute?”

“Just because I inherited it doesn’t mean it’s mine”

“Actually, that’s exactly what it means. You have got to stop feeling guilty about being born into a wealthy family, we’ve talked about this.”

“Fine” she said. After a little while she got a sad look in her eyes and went on “what’s more, not only were we here, but everyone else wasn’t, so less mouths to feed. My mother, stepfather and the Johnsons next door decided to take the collective five kids to Namibia for spring break. It turned out to be the worst possible part of the world to be in at the time, as we later discovered, and I was the one who encouraged them to go, I fell in love with the place when I visited. They were off in a safari when we found out what was going on, so by the time we managed to get through to them they could no longer fly out. We rented an entire lodge and told them to get there with as much supplies as they could and be ready to go back to the days of hunting and gathering.” She stopped for a few seconds before adding quietly “I hope they’re still there.” Lucas put his arm around her shoulder and Jonathan held her hand as silent tears rolled down her face. 

“Jonathan and I both have deceased parents and no siblings, so that just left the three of us” Lucas completed her train of thought. “As for the information we had, I was collaborating with two colleagues on a study about mental health problems associated with the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, which meant research and interviews at different CDC locations. I was always the one that went to Atlanta when needed and I actually had a meeting two days after we got down here, but I arrived there to find it had been cancelled due to a scheduling conflict. It was clear that this was a rushed excuse and something very serious was happening, so I tracked down a researcher that had been our contact there to see what I could find out, I thought maybe H1N1 had mutated and was starting to spread again. At first she looked like she was going to brush me off but then she seemed to change her mind, sat down and told me what was really happening: a new virus had been identified in Malawi and they’d been tracking it for two weeks as it made its way through Africa. She said at the rate it was going it would likely be less than 10 days before it got to us. When she started talking about flesh-eating reanimated bodies I almost got up and walked away, but she assured me it was true and even showed me a video on her cellphone. It was grotesque.”

“You know she only spilled the beans because she wanted to sleep with you, right? We were basically saved by the contents of your pants” Marissa said teasingly, seeming to have recovered from her moment of sadness. She turned back to Daryl and Michonne to continue “Lucas, instead of obliging the poor woman, rushed back here to talk things over with Jonathan and me, but we were just going over the obvious. A virus with a death rate of 100% and individuals who remain contagious forever _and_ who actively seek out healthy people to infect? This was our meteor. And even if it wasn’t, none of us wanted to take part in building a brave new world, so we decided on just making sure we bought as much time as possible to live here by ourselves. We spent the night mapping out our plans and by the time the virus got here, which was 8 days later, we were as ready as we were going to get. And this is where the last part comes in, our resources. You want to take this one Jonathan?”

He looked at her like this was the last thing he wanted to do, but turned to Michonne and Daryl and said “we had a lot of money.”

“Informative as always” Marissa said. “We moved as many of my stepfather’s projects as we could down here, had a few necessary modifications made to the house and filled it with everything and anything we thought we could possibly need or even want; we had stuff all over the place when we first started, still have some of it spread around the house. I believe the first time we set foot outside was around the six-month mark.”

“So, you just stay down here?” Daryl asked incredulously.

“We go upstairs every so often to make sure everything looks alright, and we had to start branching out a bit after a while, but yeah, we mostly stay in here” Lucas answered.

“Doin’ what?” Daryl again.

Marissa answered this time “the same as every human has always done and will always do: turn time into food, which we eat so we have the strength to turn more time into more food, which we eat, and so forth and so on, until we eventually die, some choosing to leave offspring behind to carry on the senseless cycle. The difference from before is that we cut out the step where we used to turn our time into money which we then used to buy the food.”

“Come now, Marissa, you make it sound like you don’t enjoy any part of what’s happening between being born and dying.”

“I can assure you I enjoy myself as much as I can possibly want, Jonathan and Lucas make sure of it” she said to Michonne and Daryl. “There, happy?” she asked Lucas.

“Not exactly what I meant, but good to know.”

“OK then. What about you two? You mentioned you had a group?” Marissa asked.

“Yeah, we was livin’ nearby but got separated so now we have to go lookin’ for the others.” Daryl answered, rivaling Jonathan’s conciseness.

“I see. And where’s your rendezvous point?” Marissa asked.

“Huh?” Daryl.

“The place where you arranged to meet in case you lost each other.” Marissa clarified.

“We don’t have one” Michonne said thinking of how stupid it was that they hadn’t set one up.

“Hmm… what do you think dear, want to take a stab at it? If we had enough information, it might actually be a little more than just guesswork.” Marissa said to an uncertain looking Jonathan. “You know you’ll enjoy it, and I want to see that big brain of yours at work.” This she said in a very suggestive voice closer to his ear, but not low enough to spare the others.

Jonathan turned bright red, mumbled what sounded like “OK” and quickly made for the desks in the corner of the room, Marissa going after him.

‘Those two need to get a room, pronto’ Michonne thought.

Daryl turned to Lucas with a puzzled expression and he said “don’t look at me, this is their thing. I’m going to take it as my cue to go to bed. Good night.”

Michonne said “good night” back and Daryl grunted.

He met Marissa on her way back to the sofa and said “have fun, but please don’t stay up all night, you know you need to sleep. And eat something in a couple of hours. Something healthy.” He then kissed her cheek, said good night to Jonathan and walked toward the bedrooms.

Marissa put a legal pad and some pens on the coffee table and said “here, if you want to write down some information, we can play around with calculating the odds for each direction in which your friends might have gone.” She lowered her voice and continued “mind you, regardless of what I said to him, it _will_ just be a lot of guesswork, but you don’t seem to have a lot to go on, so…”

Michonne and Daryl looked at each other for a while and ended up shrugging at the same time, so they went with it.

“What do you need?” Michonne asked.

“First, list everyone and then put everything you know about them: age, body type, personality traits, any injuries, how battle ready they are, weapon of choice, left or right-handed, any skills they may have even if it seems irrelevant, who is related to who, and how. Anything you can think of, really, the more details the better. Next, list the places where you’ve been, in chronological order, and put what happened at each one. We’ll take it from there and let you know if we need anything else.”

Daryl looked at Michonne trying to figure out where to start and she had to admit she was somewhat overwhelmed herself.

Marissa picked up on it and said “or you can come with us and we’ll just ask questions and take notes. It might actually be a good idea to interview you separately, so we can get your points of view without each other’s influence, and then we can all talk together. Plus, this way you can take turns sleeping. Who wants to go first?”

“I’ll do it, just give me a couple of minutes and I’ll be right back” Michonne said before going off with Daryl to their bedroom.

When they got there, she closed the door and asked him “are you OK with this?”

“I dunno, my head hurts. How can they speak so much? And she talks so fast.”

“I know, I’m a little dizzy myself. But I’m still not getting ‘danger’ from them. Weird as hell for sure, I don’t even want to think about what goes on in that bedroom. But I’m not feeling threatened. Do you suppose we have anything to lose by just telling them all we can?”

“Don’t sound like it. But if I’m bein’ honest, I ain’t sure I understood what it is they want to do. It definitely seemed like they should be doin’ it in private, though.” Daryl’s face turned slightly red and he avoided Michonne’s eyes. As with a few times before, she felt somehow drawn by his awkwardness and was surprised to realize she thought it endearing.

“Alright then, I’ll tell them everything I can think of and hope for the best. Go to sleep, I’ll come get you later.”

She found herself wanting to follow Lucas’ example, so she gave him a kiss on the cheek before walking away.

He stood there staring after her, turning redder and redder by the second. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed :) Please let me know what you think, your input is very much appreciated!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to anyone still reading!! I know there are many options to choose from, so I really appreciate those taking the time to try my story!!

* * *

If Daryl thought his head was hurting before, it was nothing compared to how it was feeling now. He’d probably talked more in the last couple of hours than in the last couple of months. When Marissa told him they had all the information they needed, he’d jumped up and all but ran out of the living room, not wanting to risk being called back.

And now he was outside the door to his and Michonne’s room. Their room. Where, he had just realized, there was only one bed.

Not that they hadn’t slept close to each other before, they’d even had to make do with just one blanket once, to keep from freezing their asses off during a particularly cold night while looking for the Governor. But sharing a proper bed felt somehow different. 

He slowly opened the door, trying not to wake Michonne, but he knew better. As soon as there were sounds of movement, he abandoned his useless effort and walked in to find her sitting cross-legged on the bed and still wearing the green dress. He stood there biting the side of his thumb while trying to figure out what to do next, eventually deciding to sit on the armchair and take off his boots.

“Sorry, I was tryin’ to be quiet,” he said.

“Don’t worry. I don’t think either of us will ever be able to not wake the other again,” she responded.

“Yeah” he agreed. “Finally got away from all them questions. Still don’t see how this can help.”

“I don’t either,” she sighed wearily “Let’s just wait and see if those two come up with anything worthwhile. We can still get one or two more hours of sleep,” she said getting under the covers. “Here’s something I thought I’d never say again: would you turn off the lights, please?”

He went to the light switch, flicked it off and once again stood there biting the side of his thumb and trying to figure out what to do next, eventually deciding to sit on the armchair, this time to settle for the night.

Michonne realized he hadn’t laid down and looked back at him. “What are you doing?”

“I… um… well… I thought I might sleep here,” he stammered.

“Don’t be ridiculous, hop on” she said patting the empty space next to her.

His face flushed and, for a moment there, it seemed like his brain might actually short-circuit. Once he recovered, he got into bed, lying stiffly on his back and staring straight at the ceiling. She turned to look at him and had to bite her lower lip to keep from smiling too broadly at his nervousness. Before she realized what she was doing, she gently brushed his hair away from his face, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, said goodnight, and faced the other way, leaving him to turn a shade of red he had probably never before attained, all the while wondering how the hell he was supposed to get any sleep now. 

* * *

Some two hours later Daryl and Michonne walked into the kitchen to the sweet smell of coffee. They each happily accepted a cup and moved to the dining table where Jonathan and Marissa were poring over the road map. Lucas joined them, taking for himself Marissa’s coffee mug, which he replaced with a glass of orange juice.

“So, was this exercise as futile as expected?” Lucas asked.

Marissa gave him an indignant look, which turned into a downright murderous stare when she noticed the change in her beverage.

“Yes” answered Jonathan, getting a stare of his own. “Not enough time and data for a proper model. It was fun, though.”

“OK, so it wasn’t exactly a success, but we have some considerations, even if they are obvious” Marissa said.

“ _You_ have considerations. I had nothing to do with your dubious reasoning” Jonathan interjected.

“Shush” she told Jonathan before turning to the others. “In general terms, we think no one is likely to go north, seen as the situation in Atlanta was well known by all. Chances of people going west are also not high since humans tend to gravitate toward the coast as opposed to inland. That still leaves everything in quadrant IV, though.” She paused to draw breath and continued “any children who got out by themselves would almost certainly have hovered around waiting for an adult to come by, with the possible exception of…” she stopped to consult her notes before going on “…Carl, who seems like he would choose to search for his father and sister.”

Both Daryl and Michonne nodded in agreement.

“Which brings us to more specific educated guesses,” Marissa said, getting an eye roll from Jonathan. She assumed an air of one who’s going to give a college lecture and carried on “the brain is wired so that, in times of extreme stress, it relies on faster, more primitive regions, whose behavior is largely automatic under such circumstances.”

“In other words, when things get complicated people tend to go back to what they know” Lucas interrupted, giving Marissa a no-one-cares-so-let’s-move-this-along look.

“Alright, alright,” she said and picked up her notepad. “This means that, um… Beth and Maggie would likely return to their farm, whether they got out together or in the hopes of finding one another. By extension, so would Glenn. There’s a good chance anyone who used to live in Woodbury, and didn’t personally go through a traumatic event there, decided that going back might be a good idea, especially with the infrastructure that was in place.” She looked at her notes again and continued “with Rick it probably went differently because in all likelihood he’d be looking for his children. This, in addition to his being badly hurt, would have kept him close to the prison. He would still tend to end up in spots where he’d already been, though, particularly ones where he may have taken his son.”

She laid the map closer to Daryl and Michonne and started pointing out places as she went on “If I were you I’d go look around Senoia because a) the farm is on its outskirts, and b) it’s only about 15 miles from where you said the prison is located, so it’s close enough for anyone to have reached, even those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, have moved much. My second choice would be Woodbury. If I didn’t find anyone at whichever location I chose, I’d just go east until I hit the coast.”

Michonne and Daryl exchanged a we-need-to-talk-this-over look before she turned to the other three and said “thank you very much.”

“No problem,” Marissa responded. “I’m just sorry it was all so feeble.”

“Not at all, you’ve given us a lot to think about.” Michonne said.

After a slight pause in the conversation, Lucas got up and said “the plants need looking after, so we’ll leave you to discuss your plans.”

Daryl grunted a “thanks” and the three hosts left.

Not even one minute had passed before the door opened and Lucas returned. “I’d like a word” he said sitting back down.

“Sure, go ahead,” Michonne responded.

“There are a couple of things we need that require raiding a pharmacy, something we haven’t done before. Normally Jonathan and I would attempt it while Marissa stayed behind to look after the garden and the animals, but right now she can’t be left by herself, which means one of us would have to venture out alone, and that’s something else we haven’t done before. I’d like to propose that I drive you wherever you choose to go in exchange for your helping me look for what we need on the way. I wanted you to take this into account when you consider what to do next. Talk it over and let me know what you think.”

“We will” Michonne assured him as he got up to leave again.

* * *

Once they were alone, Michonne said “I have to admit, they, or rather she, actually had some good points.”

“I s’pose. Where do _you_ think we should go?”

“Well… you said we are about twenty miles from the prison, right? So, we walked what per day? Shit, I’m not even sure how long it’s been since we were attacked. I’d say… two or three days?”

“Seems like it oughta be more, but I don’t see how. We’re sleepin’ here tonight, so one day. Before that we was at the treehouse, so two. Like I said, I ain’t clear on what happened before we met, but it couldn’t’ve been more than another day ‘cause I don’t remember lookin’ for water.”

“OK, so let’s say two days since that gives us a higher average, 10 miles per day. You think anyone is doing more?” she asked.

“If they got away on the bus, sure. If they is walkin’, only if it’s one of the adults and they couldn’t be hurt or meetin’ too many walkers.”

“Sounds about right, if I had kept my head, I’m sure I would have moved further. The question is: moved where? What would you have done if we hadn’t met?”

Daryl looked at her and thought ‘ _that_ is the question.’ And he sure as hell didn’t have an answer for it. He hadn’t even let himself think about it much, scared of what his brain might come up with. Out loud he said “I woulda tracked down the closest river or creek and set up camp nearby. Beyond that I honestly don’t know, it would be my first time without anyone since this nightmare. How ‘bout you?”

“I thought about it a lot while I was alone, and maybe it’s the whole ‘humans tend to go to the ocean’ thing Marissa said, but I figured the coast was the best bet, better if I could make it to an island.”

“Hmm… that does sound like a good idea.”

“I know, right? But that was when I was thinking of where to settle, now our goal is to look for the others first. Would any of them attempt it when it’s around 300 miles from here to the beach?”

“Probably not. Fuck, what the hell do I know?” he said frustratedly. He paused to ponder, biting the side of his thumb, and added “I say we go with what she said and look around Senoia. I can get us to the farm, no problem.”

“OK. And do we help them with the pharmacy thing? It would get us there much faster.”

“Why not? We done so many runs one more don’t make no difference. We just need to tell him there’s no guarantee and we ain’t tryin’ nothing too crazy.”

* * *

After everything was agreed upon, they started getting ready to leave as soon as possible. Jonathan was preparing something for them to eat, Daryl and Lucas were getting the car ready and Michonne was in the mini-mart room with Marissa gathering supplies. They grabbed bags and started filling them with all kinds of necessities. When they got to the toiletries section Marissa spotted something in a middle shelf.

“Oh look, I forgot we had these stored,” she said, pulling out a 36-count box of condoms. “Here, for you, I’m sorry I didn’t think of it yesterday.”

“Um… thank you, but it’s OK, Daryl and I aren’t together” Michonne said.

“Why not? You seem to get along quite well and, based on what you told us last night, I’m sure you’ve developed a bond. I mean, with the amount of time you two spend alone together, under stressful conditions no less, it’s either that or you would have killed each other by now; there’s really no middle ground in these circumstances.” She handed Michonne some soap and shampoo before continuing “besides, even if you’re not together, so what? Didn’t the two of you define the current situation as ‘everything going to hell’? That’s no time to be creating difficulties for doing one of the few enjoyable things the world has to offer. Just make sure you don’t get pregnant,” she added looking serious. “Or maybe Daryl’s not your type? I don’t see why he wouldn’t be; then again, we can’t all agree on what makes someone handsome. Too bad you’re not staying another night; if Lucas is more to your liking, I’m sure he would happily go for it if you wanted, and you would most definitely _not_ be disappointed.”

“Oh, I thought…” Michonne blurted out before quickly stopping herself.

“That we were together?” Marissa completed the sentence and nodded a positive response. “Since we all were fifteen. But I have two, so who am I to limit them? Jonathan never branched out, but Lucas did all the time.”

Michonne didn’t quite know how to respond to all this personal information. Not that it mattered, though, since even if she managed to come up with something she’d be lucky to get more than two words in.

Marissa turned the package around and read something before continuing “anyways, take the condoms. I don’t need them, and it would be a shame to let them go to waste. It looks like they’ll expire in six months, so to be on the safe side you should be good for three or four, just in case we haven’t kept proper track of time.” She rummaged around the shelf and pulled out two more boxes “I think this is all we have, so you’ll have to pace yourself.”

Michonne still had no idea what to say.

“And think about it. We’ve only met yesterday, so I could be entirely wrong, but Daryl seems like a good person, as do you. I also have an inkling that there’s a sweet guy hidden under all his gruffness. Plus, he’s hot. Just imagine looking into his beautiful blue eyes while you run your hands over his strong arms, and other body parts I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing but which I’m sure are just as desirable. You clearly believe you’re lucky if you make it to the end of each day, so why pass that up?” Marissa said as though she was advising Michonne to consider Daryl as a partner for something like a card game. “Alright, let’s move over to the MREs.”

* * *

Michonne and Daryl were in the bedroom packing the last of their things when they heard a knock.

“Come in,” Michonne said.

Marissa entered. “Hi, how’s everything?”

“Good, we’re almost done, should be ready to leave in 15 minutes,” Michonne answered.

“Great. Can I borrow Daryl for a few of those?”

Michonne turned uncertainly to him, who looked alarmed and somewhat indignant. He eventually shrugged and walked out of the room muttering something that was best left untranslated. Marissa smiled and winked at Michonne before closing the door and following him, which had the latter apprehensively wondering what the other woman was up to.

Marissa led Daryl into the indoor garden and said “I need to release water with nutrients into the system but it’s going to take a stronger pair of hands than mine, and Jonathan and Lucas are upstairs. It’s these valves, they’re too tightly closed.”

Daryl looked at the thirty or so valves and got started, surprised to find that they were indeed unyielding. 

“The things you and Michonne told us last night were disconcerting, you’ve been through a lot,” Marissa said, getting a grunt in response. “You must be well trained in combat by now.” Another grunt. “The katana Michonne carries is impressive, is she any good with it?”

This time Daryl felt compelled to speak “ ‘Chonne is amazing,” he said, his demeanor instantly softening. “I found more than twenty walkers she killed by herself just three days ago. No one I rather fight with.”

“Amazing, huh? Almost makes me want to see her in action. What does she look like?”

“Oh, it’s a sight, all focused and hittin’ just right. Many times she takes out two walkers with one swing, I even seen her do three once,” he said in admiration. “She’s fearless.”

“Impressive. And you definitely look like you know your way around that crossbow. How lucky you found each other. I mean, who would want to mess with such a formidable couple?”

Daryl froze like a deer in the headlights and Marissa patiently waited for him to recover. When he finally did, he turned fire-hydrant red and mumbled “we ain’t a couple.”

“No? You surprise me; you are so well suited to each other. Haven’t you ever considered it?”

Daryl didn’t respond, but it got him thinking. The answer was no, he hadn’t. He’d given up on wanting things he couldn’t have long before any of this ever happened and he couldn’t, even in his wildest dreams, imagine Michonne wanting to be with someone like him. Well, maybe every now and again one of those dreams betrayed him, but that was beside the point. The fact was that she was out of his league and he’d do well to put an end to these musings.

“You know,” Marissa started when she saw that Daryl was done with his internal conversation, “there are things that happen throughout history which change our mating dynamic, and this virus is one of them. The basic idea remains the same, we subconsciously look in each other for the characteristics we think would give our offspring the best chance of survival, even if we don’t want children. The definition of what these traits are, however, alters according to what society is experiencing at the time. From what you told us things are like outside, this disease, devastating as it may be, turned both you and Michonne into very desirable partners. Equally. You are now an eligible bachelor and she is an eligible bachelorette. It’s something to consider.”

Once he had opened all the valves her manner transformed into a somber one and she pleaded “please take care of Lucas for me. Don’t let him do anything stupid. He won’t say, but I know whatever it is he wants to get is for me, and there’s nothing I could possibly need more than I need him.”

Daryl was taken aback by the sudden shift in the tone of the conversation but got over it when he sensed the woman’s distress. Fighting through his feelings of awkwardness caused by the display of emotion, he responded seriously “we will.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed :) Please let me know what you think, your comments keep me motivated.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those still here :)
> 
> It’s been a month since I last updated, and I apologize. I was in the process of moving overseas for work, but that only justifies about two weeks’ worth of delay, the rest I have to admit was my being lazy. Now that I’m settled, though, my plan is to update once a week.
> 
> There are two trigger warnings for this chapter which I decided to include in the end notes. I know that putting a warning at the bottom of the text would seem to defeat the purpose, but I kindly ask that those who wish to read them prior to starting the update quickly scroll down, so as to accommodate anyone who prefers to avoid possible spoilers. 
> 
> If this is not in line with fanfiction rules, policy, or etiquette, please let me know in the comments so I can change it. Thanks!

* * *

After goodbyes had been exchanged, including a nearly X-rated one between Marissa and Lucas, the three that were leaving got into a Hummer and drove off, soon heading north on SR 85.

“So, whatcha lookin’ for? We gotta find an actual pharmacy or a place with over the counter stuff is enough?” Daryl asked from the back seat.

“We need a couple of uncommon medications, so it’ll have to be a proper drugstore, and most likely one with a wide variety of pharmaceuticals at that,” Lucas answered.

“Marissa mentioned a town named… Averton I think? Should we start there?” Michonne enquired from the passenger side.

“Alvaton?” Lucas said in an amused tone. “Did you notice that handful of houses followed by a diminutive convenience store we passed a couple of minutes ago? That was it.”

“You mean to say we’ve driven through something that was considered a town?” Michonne asked.

“I don’t think it was an actual town; it barely merits the term ‘village’,” Lucas responded. “Haralson should be coming up in another five minutes or so, and I know it had a pharmacy. It wasn’t much to speak of, but we might get lucky.”

After the predicted five minutes or so, Daryl asked, “That it up ahead?”

“Um-hum. If memory serves me right, we just need to find Main Street. Fortunately, people didn’t tend to get creative when naming thoroughfares.”

They located the road and the small establishment, but figured they’d better leave the car in a more inconspicuous location. A trail across the street seemed ideal, so they veered onto it, drove for a little bit, and camouflaged the vehicle as best they could before backtracking on foot. Lucas got his first look at Michonne in action when two walkers took notice of their presence.

“Wow!” he exclaimed in a hushed tone.

“Yep!” Daryl whispered with a small smile.

Michonne, oblivious to the attention she was receiving, flicked the blood off her blade and continued ahead, the men following closely. When they reached the edge of the woods, they stayed hidden and observed the area for a while. Not seeing or hearing anything, they crossed the road and made for the store. It was clear that the place had been raided more than once: front door barely hanging on its hinges, busted windows, shelves mostly bare, trampled items littering the floor, and a couple of walker carcasses slumped in a corner.

“Doesn’t look good, but let me check behind the counter,” Lucas said.

Daryl grunted a positive response and stood at the entrance scanning the surroundings while Michonne examined the few things still intact. As usual, makeup didn’t seem to be in high demand.

When enough time had passed for Michonne to think something had happened to Lucas, she went to check, but ran into him coming from the back.

“Sorry, the drugs were scattered all over. I had to basically look at every one of them, good thing it’s a small place. On the upside, I found two boxes of one of the medications, and still valid,” Lucas said in surprise. “Did you happen to see anything for nausea?” he asked.

She looked through the shelves behind her and handed him two pink bottles.

“Fuck, I hear growlin’,” Daryl hissed. “Ain’t no hidin’ in here, we gotta go!”

They looked around and, seeing a swarm of walkers coming from behind the store, darted in the opposite direction, which thankfully had them going toward the car. Not so thankfully, though, was their being flanked by two herds of about thirty dead once they entered the woods. Where in the hell had all these damn corpses sprouted from? Before Michonne knew what was happening, her brain had told her body to keep sprinting after decapitating a walker, her two companions knifing a few of their own as they followed her lead.

Since the car had come and gone, it appeared Michonne’s brain didn’t think much of the Hummer as far as safe hiding spots went. A very southern-looking, large two-story home not much further ahead, however, seemed to better fit the term, so they ran flat out and barreled into the house, Daryl and Lucas securing the front door with a heavy china cabinet while Michonne watched for any trouble. They all heard growling inside the residence, but as it was coming from a closed room they decided to deal with it after all of the downstairs had been cleared and all of the curtains had been drawn. Once that was out of the way, Lucas remained in the kitchen to bar the back entrance with the refrigerator as Michonne opened a door to reveal a bathroom containing a lone walker, which got an arrow to the forehead before it even had the chance to realize it was no longer trapped. 

“Looks recent,” Daryl said as he prodded the corpse with his foot.

“Yeah… no more than a week, I’d say,” she agreed. 

“I peeked through the drapes and it’s not good news, we’re just about surrounded,” Lucas whispered as he joined the other two.

Daryl motioned to the stairs with his head and they followed him, splitting up once they reached the landing to check all the rooms, where they found neither dead nor living.

“Looks like we’ll have to wait this out,” Michonne said.

“I’m sorry,” Lucas said, looking downcast.

“Don’t fret, we’re used to this kind of thing. I’m not saying we’re not in a tight spot, but this is nowhere near the worst we’ve had to deal with. So long as we hole up, we should be fine,” Michonne said.

“Yeah… but I know you’re in a hurry, so I still apologize.”

“Like ‘Chonne said, when we’re outside we always end up runnin’ or hidin’, usually both, that’s just how it goes. Let’s block the stairs with a bed or sumthin’, close all these doors and settle in the hallway for now.”

* * *

Daryl’s thoughts reverted to his conversation with Marissa, or rather to her monologue. She had called him desirable. But how could it be true when he was just a good-for-nothing redneck who was too stupid to hold a proper job? His father had told him so his entire life and that’s exactly how things had turned out, even after he’d finally escaped home to go bunk with Merle. Who would desire someone like that?

And what about his scars? The first girl he’d dated had pitied him and the second had been disgusted, told him he was weak. They’d been right, of course. After that, he’d done all he could to make sure no one saw his back ever again.

When Marissa had used the word ‘equally’ he was _sure_ he’d misunderstood her, because he refused to believe she’d meant to say ‘Chonne and he were in any way similar. That was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. She was smart, fearless, skilled, confident, kind, beautiful, in sum, his inverse. 

What really had him thinking, though, was that she’d made it sound like all this hell had somehow been a good thing for him. And the more he thought about it, the more uncomfortable he got, for it seemed Marissa might have been on to something. People had started looking to him for food, shelter, protection; he’d been put on a goddamn _council_ , for fuck’s sake! All it had taken for him to be worth something was for the dead to walk the earth.

* * *

Michonne sat reflecting on Marissa’s lecture, for lack of a better word. The thing that had struck her the most was how the two of them could look at the same set of circumstances and come up with diametrically opposed points of view. Marissa had said that, since people could die at any moment, they shouldn’t hold back from forming relationships, while Michonne had made a point of _not_ forming relationships _because_ people could die at any moment. But hadn’t she been lying on the floor of that tree house just two days ago reflecting on how isolating herself had left her more dead than alive? It seemed like the other woman was the one with the right idea.

Did it follow that getting involved with Daryl was a good idea, though? Marissa clearly thought so, but Michonne hadn’t thought of him like that. ‘Why not?’ flashed in her mind. Her fast-speaking host was correct, Daryl was a good person and, despite his best efforts to hide it, a sweet guy. He was also caring, resourceful, skilled, and most definitely hot. Not to mention Michonne distinctly remembered wondering if he might be able to help her open up. She threw a contemplative look his way and couldn’t help but smile a little. 

* * *

Some seven mind-numbing hours later found the three of them still upstairs, a detailed plan for the next day being the only good thing to come out of it all. The herd had started to dissipate, but not enough to make leaving the house a good idea, so they decided to spend the night and leave at first light. Daryl and Michonne weren’t exactly thrilled, but it was nothing new for them. Lucas, on the other hand, was looking dangerously close to a panic attack. 

“Lucas?” Michonne said in what she hoped was a soothing voice. “Are you OK?”

“No… I mean, yes. I understand this happens all the time, and I do apologize for putting us in this situation, but, you see, for the better part of two years Marissa, Jonathan and I have been around each other 24/7, and now I won’t make it back today, probably not even tomorrow,” he said looking down. “I know it’s stupid, they’re in a locked basement, but I’m worried sick. And more than that, they’ll be worried sick, which isn’t good for her.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” she assured him, thinking things like that happened anywhere, any time. “And it isn’t stupid to worry about your loved ones.” She considered if she should say anything else and, deciding to do so, added “specially if they require extra care, like Marissa does now.”

Lucas turned to Michonne somewhat surprisedly and asked, “She told you?”

“No… I guessed, and you just confirmed… sorry,” Michonne answered, looking appropriately embarrassed. “I assume you’re out here looking for whatever supplies you’re missing, and I believe you have medical training, right?”

“Yes, and yes.”

“Then I’m sure everything will go well with the delivery.”

“Delivery?” Lucas asked in confusion.

“Yes. Isn’t that what’s worrying you?” Michonne asked. When a full minute had passed and he continued to look bewildered she decided to add a bit more information, “the birth?”

“Birth? I don’t unders…” Lucas stopped as realization showed on his face. “You think Marissa is pregnant,” he said slowly.

“She isn’t?”

“No. What made you think she is?” he asked, looking curious. 

“Well… you’re worried she’ll get stressed, didn’t want to leave her alone, looked for nausea medication, took away her coffee, denied her wine, told her to sleep, to eat healthy food. Not to mention she apparently doesn’t need condoms, which is a lot more information than I needed.”

“When did she talk to you about condoms?” Lucas asked in surprise, getting sidetracked by the oddity of the remark. “You know what? Never mind, I’m sure it was inappropriate enough without you having to recount it,” he said. “Anyway, she’s not expecting, she can’t.”

“Oh… I’m sorry,” she said, her embarrassment increasing tenfold.

“Don’t be, it was her choice, she’s happy about it,” he assured Michonne.

This seemed to get Daryl’s attention, who was now regarding the other two.

“By the way, if you ever see her again, don’t mention what you thought. She doesn’t even like to _hear_ the word ‘pregnant’ and her name in the same sentence,” Lucas added, sounding amused again.

Not knowing what to say, Michonne just nodded.

“The reason for the things you mentioned is that Marissa suffers from bipolar disorder, and she’s currently going through a mixed episode. I never realized how much in common the measures we’re taking have with the ones adopted for expectant mothers. It makes sense, though, since a lot of it is just ensuring the patient’s body stays as healthy as possible,” Lucas said. “You only met her the once, so you wouldn’t have been able to spot the changes in behavior, but they’re obvious to Jonathan and me. On the one side, she’s speaking a lot and much faster, has extra energy, is sleeping very little, forgetting to eat, and being even more sexual than usual. On the other side, her cynical pessimism, depressed mood, and guilty feelings are intensified. Those are things we can somewhat help her through, so, if that were all, we would be handling it with what we have at the house. But she’s displaying two other symptoms that are dangerous, especially now: believing she is more capable than she actually is and taking more risks. _None_ of us ever goes upstairs alone, and she’s already done it twice, not even feeling the need to hide from two armed and seemingly capable individuals,” Lucas pointed at them. “Worse than that, she took Elie with her when she normally won’t let the dog out of the basement even with the three of us along.”

“And you’re out of medication?” Michonne asked more than said.

“No, we have plenty of it, but we noticed it was no longer working as it should during her last episode. It was a purely depressive one, so it wasn’t as much of a problem as far as the corpses go, although she most likely felt worse. In any case, without proper treatment episodes can go on for months on end, so Jonathan and I decided one of us had to look for alternative medication, or for pills from different batches than the ones we have. We know that any drugs I may find have little chance of still being effective, or will only be so for a short while, meaning all we’ll be accomplishing is to push the inevitable forward. But it might stop this episode, and, with any luck, it will be a long time before the next one comes,” he finished in a saddened voice.

“I’m sorry” was once again all Michonne could think of to say. She wasn’t sure, but thought his downcast mood might be an improvement on his previous closeness to panic, at least in terms of his ability to rest, so she added, “why don’t you try and get some sleep? Daryl and I will handle watch.” Daryl nodded in agreement.

“I can’t see myself being able to,” Lucas answered.

“You’d be surprised how tired you get from stress, and you’ve had plenty of that today. If it helps you relax in any way, be assured we’ll do our best to get the medicine you need,” Michonne said.

“Thank you. I’ll lie down at the end of the corridor, but please come and get me to rotate watch. It’s not fair for it to fall to the both of you just because I told a sad story, we all have at least one of those.”

* * *

Michonne was about to check with Daryl which shift he wanted to take when she noticed him looking pensive, so she lightly placed a hand on his forearm to get his attention before asking “everything OK?”

“Yeah…”

“You sure?”

He nodded. “I was just thinkin’ ‘bout what he said, you know, that his girl can’t have no babies because she chose it. I never known any woman who didn’t want a baby.”

“I knew a few, but most of them ended up changing their minds. Which is why I was surprised by how final he made it sound, as though she’d had surgery or something, when she still looks to be in her mid-twenties,” Michonne said.

“You mean she fixed herself? Like people do with dogs?”

“Well, that’s not how I would put it, and I believe spaying removes the ovaries rather than just tying the tubes, but I suppose the end result is the same.”

Daryl gave it some thought before saying, “I guess if she really didn’t want no babies… it’s just hard to imagine.”

“Did you want children?” Michonne asked, suddenly curious.

He looked down and started fumbling with his shoelaces before answering without meeting her eyes. “I never thought ‘bout it, you know, before the walkers; didn’t think I was gonna get married. But when Lil’ Ass Kicker was born, and I got the powder milk and gave it to her… I dunno… And then we was doin’ good at the prison, got other kids; I thought maybe… But don’t matter now.”

Michonne’s heart broke a little as she listened. She felt compelled to hug him, something that had started happening since they’d found each other a few days ago, but for some reason she was now too self-conscious to do it. So she instead made a spur-of-the-moment decision to share some of what she’d been through. “I had a son,” she started, Daryl’s head snapping to look at her in surprise. “His name was Andre; he was the best thing that ever happened to me. And now he’s gone. I couldn’t protect him.” Her eyes started to well up. “The pain is… I can’t describe it.” Overwhelmed by the memories, she had to stop and take a deep breath. “I spent months dragging my walkers around, thinking and rethinking of how I could have done things differently. But never, for even a second, did I wish Andre hadn’t been born to save myself the suffering.” Wiping the tears that had escaped her control, she went on, “I guess what I’m trying to say is, when we eventually find a place where we’re able to settle into a somewhat stable life, which I believe we will, it may be worth taking the chance, if the idea of having a baby still appeals to you.” They locked eyes before she added, “and if, you know, there’s someone you want to risk it with.”

Some time passed before they realized they were still holding each other’s gaze, Daryl being the first to look away as a crimson shade took over his face. He cleared his throat and said, “right… well… I, um… think I should take first watch.”

“Right… wake me up when it’s my turn,” Michonne said before getting into a sleeping bag and falling asleep in less than five minutes, which left Daryl trying to process what had just happened as he listened to her soft, rhythmic breathing.

‘Chonne had a son? And he’d died? Loosing Merle, who was an unmitigated jerk, had almost broken him, so what would it feel like when it was your child? He couldn’t even begin to fathom. Her efforts to shut everyone out suddenly made sense.

But then she did a one-eighty and talked about how having a young’un in this fucked-up world might be worth the risk. And he was sure he’d imagined things, but it’d felt like she had implied that _he_ might be a good choice for a dad. How could it be that this woman, who in the previous world wouldn’t have looked at him twice, or once for that matter, now saw him as an acceptable partner?

Shit, he was confused. One thing he knew, though, and it was that no one wanted any babies right now, so he put his musings aside and proceeded to clean his crossbow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:  
> \- implied past physical and psychological abuse  
> \- discussion of mental disorder
> 
> I hope you enjoyed, and thank you for the kudos :)  
> Please let me know what you think. Comments are not only a great incentive, but they also give me an idea of where I need to improve.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for sticking with the story!!
> 
> PLEASE READ BELOW BEFORE STARTING THE CHAPTER  
> This is a short update that deals with an unpleasant topic. If anyone wants to skip it, they will miss almost nothing in terms of direct plot.
> 
> I’ve included the trigger warning in the end notes and there will be a two-sentence summary at the beginning of the next chapter. I apologize in advance if anyone finds the update offensive, I was shooting for realistic.

* * *

By dawn most of the herd had moved on, so Daryl used the stragglers as target practice from a second-floor window before they walked to the Hummer as he collected his arrows along the way. When he got to what looked to have been a middle-aged woman in a flowery dress, he yanked out the bolt and along came her right eye, optic nerve dangling below. He gave it an unimpressed look and scrapped the arrow against a tree trunk to remove the organ.

Lucas sat behind the wheel again, this time with Daryl riding shotgun and Michonne in the back. It took them all of ten minutes to get to Senoia, which was a ghost town, barely a moving corpse in sight. They had found a phone book during their idle time the day before, so they knew exactly where they were going: Senoia Drugstore, right next to Senoia Health Clinic, on SR 16. They parked the car in the driveway of a nearby house that was out of sight and proceeded to their destination on foot.

The pharmacy was their primary target, so they went for it first. It wasn’t a big place, but certainly larger than the one they’d previously visited, and surprisingly not as picked through. Daryl maintained his position from the day before as entrance guard while Michonne and Lucas hopped over the counter. He’d given her a list of the drugs he was looking for, so they both got busy right away. After a thorough search, Lucas held boxes of lithium, carbamazepine, lamotrigine, fluoxetine, escitalopram, sertraline, vilazodone, alprazolam, clonazepam, risperidone, and lurasidone. 

“Does she need all that?” Michonne asked.

“No, it will probably be a combination of two, maybe three. We would normally take several months trying out the ones that are better suited to the patient’s overall health condition, adjusting dosage, and following closely with therapy, blood tests, and other exams, but…” he trailed off.

“Are you a doctor?”

“I was a second-year psychiatry resident, so I did study medicine, just never got around to practicing it,” he answered. “What about you?”

“Lawyer. Fulton County CAWAC ADA,” Michonne said.

“CAWAC?” Lucas asked.

“Crimes against women and children.”

“That’s tough. These undead must not seem like all that much compared to some of what you’ve seen.”

“Yeah. Every once in a while, I look around and think that things could be worse. Not really comforting,” she said.

“We done in here?” Daryl asked from the front, sounding a little annoyed. The other two had been talking long enough.

Michonne looked at Lucas who answered, “yes.”

“Good, let’s move next door then,” Daryl more or less barked.

They quickly made their way to the clinic’s front door and were halfway through the usual knock-and-wait procedure when they heard shouting in the distance. In less than five seconds all three were crouching in the reception area, Daryl spying out of the window. It took about fifteen minutes to spot six moronic walker magnets who, unfortunately, looked very much like they were bad news.

“Hey! There’s a clinic over there,” said one of the guys. “And a drugstore!”

“Good, let’s go,” another guy instructed the other four.

Shit! Michonne, Daryl and Lucas started scanning for somewhere to hide, but to no avail, the rooms were too scarcely furnished. When they caught conversation inside the building, they went through a door which hadn’t yet been opened, finding a small office with a table facing the right wall, a couple of filing cabinets, a tiny window close to the ceiling, and a heap of walker carcasses taking up most of the floor space. The stench was unbelievable.

They heard feet shuffling around and, all of a sudden, the clinic was filled with numerous yells of “Claimed!” This was quickly interrupted by an authoritative voice that said, “There’s no time for this now! You, go stich this idiot up. I will go to the pharmacy to get antibiotics and some party favors. The rest of you, look around, I’m sure there’ll be fun stuff here as well.”

Daryl, Michonne and Lucas heard things being tossed and turned, the noise getting closer to them with each passing minute. Michonne’s gaze swept the room in a last attempt to identify a place for them to take cover, but there wasn’t any. Or was there? She looked at the pile of cadavers and, with a resigned sigh, dove in. The men followed suit and soon all three were buried under pounds and pounds of undead. Lucas had to muster all his strength to keep from throwing up as his senses were assaulted: a pair of lifeless eyes staring at his own from a mere inch away; the overwhelming putrid smell, which made it almost impossible to breathe; the feel of decaying flesh against his skin; the taste of liquified brain matter that slowly dripped on his face and insisted on seeping into his mouth.

The door to the office flew open and was closed with the same speed.

“Fuck!” exclaimed guy X.

“What’s in there? Smells worse than Billy,” guy Y said with a snicker.

“Looks like a pile of everyone who worked here. I sure as hell ain’t gonna search in there.”

“Don’t look at me.”

“Hey Billy, c’mere. I think you’ll like what’s in this room,” X said.

A minute later the door was once again opened and immediately closed, which was followed by a gagging noise and some uncontrolled laughing.

“Fuck you!!” guy Z, presumably Billy, now joined the conversation.

Once the commotion had died down, Y said, “Fuckin’ with people is always great, but we better not open this room again.”

“Yeah,” agreed Z. “Put a chair in front of it or somethin’, so we don’t forget which one it is, and let’s move on.”

A thud was heard, followed by the sounds of the three guys moving away.

Michonne, Daryl and Lucas waited a bit before silently extricating themselves from the pile of walkers; it would have been safer to remain as they were, but it was so fetid they decided to throw caution to the wind. Daryl and Michonne had barely started their wordless communication to try and figure out their next move when they heard the others coming back. 

“I don’t see the point of searchin’ the place if we can’t claim the stuff,” said Y.

“Yeah,” Z agreed.

“Long as I get the girl first when we find ‘em, I don’t give a flyin’ fuck ‘bout anything in here,” said X.

“You gonna have to be quick claimin’ her,” Y pointed out.

“Already did,” X said.

“You can’t claim someone we ain’t found yet,” Y retorted.

“Course I can! Claimed her back at the house when I found her shirt. Me and her gonna have some fun,” X said in a disturbing tone of voice.

Daryl moved to position himself between Michonne and the door without realizing he was doing it. 

“Pussy is pussy, I don’t care if I get it first or last,” Z said.

“You don’t know what you talkin’ about. If you’re not first, you don’t get the best part, them fightin’,” X said. “Seein’ them realize there ain’t no point in fightin’ no more is better than cummin’.”

“You sayin’ it’s better if the girl ain’t into it?” Y asked skeptically.

“Of course!”

“And you, um, have a lotta experience with that?” Y again.

“Oh yeah, lost count of how many whores I took, even choked a couple. That was fun, seein’ life go out from their eyes, like you turnin’ off a lamp, but I prefer to leave them alive, so they’ll always think on me,” X answered matter-of-factly.

A silence of a minute or so followed.

“What about the cops?” Z asked this time.

“What about ‘em? No one cares ‘bout no whore,” X said. “Come on, the sooner we finish here, the sooner I can get me that girl.”

Michonne and Daryl looked like they might throw up. Lucas actually tasted bile, the living accomplishing what the dead couldn’t.

Another half an hour went by before the men left. After waiting to make sure no one was coming back, they got out of the room and, without exchanging so much as a word, or even a glance, Daryl went to the reception while Lucas and Michonne scavenged for medication. Twenty minutes later Lucas had added several boxes to his collection of pharmaceuticals and the three of them walked back to the car.

“Once in a while?” Lucas asked Michonne, still fighting the urge to hurl.

“Yeah…” she answered with a weary sigh.

They fell silent again.

“I, um, want to thank you for, you know, helping me find the medicine,” Lucas finally spoke. “Where can I take you?”

“The farm,” Daryl said, looking to Michonne for confirmation, which she gave by nodding her head. “It’s off SR 85, so we gotta go back to it and keep goin’ north. I’ll know when we get close.”

“OK.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: discussion of sexual assault
> 
> Please let me know what you think in the comments, they are a great incentive.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is another short update. I hope you are enjoying the story!
> 
> There is a trigger warning for this chapter in the end notes.
> 
> Summary of chapter 10 for those who chose to skip it (sorry, it ended up being more than two sentences):  
> \- In Senoia, Michonne, Daryl, and Lucas raid a drugstore and a clinic, where they find the medication Marissa needs.  
> \- Michonne tells she was a Lawyer (Fulton County ADA, Crimes Against Women and Children Unit), and Lucas tells he was a second-year psychiatry resident.  
> \- They hide from the Claimers in the clinic and hear that they are looking for some people, including a girl. One of the Claimers talks about his plans to sexually assault her.  
> \- Lucas, Daryl, and Michonne depart for the farm.

* * *

As soon as they turned north on SR 85 the car ran out of gas, so, while the others watched the area, Lucas went to fill the tank with the extra fuel they’d brought. Michonne walked a little ahead and spotted something curious. She returned to the Hummer and said, “there’s an abandoned train car on tracks running under the road. It’s got some sort of sign on it; I want to check it out.”

“I’m done here. If you two want to go, I can watch the car,” Lucas said.

“OK.”

Daryl and Michonne made their way down and approached the wagon. It had a banner stretched across its side that read ‘Sanctuary for all. Community for all. Those who arrive, survive.’ Tacked below was an old Railway and County Map of Georgia with a number of highlighted railroads, all leading to the city of Macon, on top of which there was a hexagram with ‘TERMINUS’ written next to it. 

Michonne furrowed her brow as she turned to Daryl and asked, “what do you think? Would anyone go for it if they saw this sign?”

“Not sure,” he answered. “I mean, wouldja? Seems a bit too good, don’t it?”

“It does,” she said. “On the other hand, it’s not like there are a lot of other options. We lucked out, came across people who gave us plenty of supplies, but it would be too much of a coincidence if that were to be the case with everyone else.”

“True,” he said with a reflective look on his face. After a couple of minutes, he continued, “why don’t we go to the farm and, if there ain’t no sign of anyone by tomorrow morning, we try this place?”

“Sounds good.”

When they got back to the vehicle Lucas asked if they’d found anything interesting and Michonne described what they’d seen and their revised plan.

Lucas considered the information for a little while and said, “I’m sure I’m just overthinking, but the name has me wondering. One of the meanings of ‘terminus’ is literally ‘the end point of a transportation system,’ so it makes perfect sense. I just can’t help but think of ‘terminate’ when I hear it, though, and that creeps me out a bit.”

“Now you mention it, it does sound a little creepy,” Michonne said.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think your plan is a good one. I mean, if the alternative were to be out here, I’d probably go have a look at the place. The name would have me being extra careful, though.”

“Don’t worry. With the stuff we’ve seen, we’d be extra careful if the name was ‘The Wonderful Land of Puppies and Kittens,” Michonne assured him. 

* * *

Daryl’s impressive sense of direction had gotten them straight to the farm. Unfortunately, between the dilapidated house, the burned-down barn, and the weed-infested fields, it was a dreary view. They conducted a thorough sweep of and around the home but found no signs of occupation. They did, however, find enough water to clean up, as well as unexpired cans of food, which they used for a meal.

“I thought I’d stay the night and, if you decide to go back to the train tracks, I’ll drop you off on my way home tomorrow. Plus, I can keep watch later so you can start your trek better rested, should that be what you choose to do” Lucas said.

“That would be great, thanks,” Michonne answered while Daryl gave him a nod.

“OK, so I’ll go rest in one of the bedrooms. Wake me up me when you want to turn in.”

“We will.”

* * *

Daryl entered the house after smoking a cigarette to find Michonne on the couch with a bottle of Jameson and two glasses.

“I think there’s just enough for two drinks each,” Michonne said while she poured the liquor.

“Where didja find that? Hershel didn’t have no alcohol in the house.”

“It was hidden in the kitchen. So, either it was left behind by someone who showed up after you guys had to move on, or I came across somebody’s secret stash,” she said, handing him a glass, which he took before flopping into one of the armchairs. They sat for some time in a comfortable silence, just enjoying each other’s company.

“Do you really think we gonna find somewhere to settle?” Daryl was first to speak.

“I do… I have to, otherwise there’s no point; I might as well go back to wandering with the walkers, which is no different than being dead,” she answered. “You don’t?”

“I dunno… it’s just been ‘bout survivin’ for so long, even before all this… I never stopped to think on it.”

Michonne sensed a shift in the conversation, as if Daryl was now the one who wanted to share some of what he’d been through. Maybe it was the whiskey; it hadn’t been much, but, then again, they hadn’t had alcohol in a long time. In any case, she found herself hoping to be right, because she did want to learn more about him. When she saw he was biting the side of his thumb, like he did when he was embarrassed, or considering something he thought could be embarrassing, she decided to try and help him out.

“Is that how you got to be such a good hunter?”

He changed thumbs and glanced at her with uncertainty before saying, “yeah… my old man and my mom… well, they weren’t always there… so Merle and me had to learn to find what we needed.”

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely.

“Nah. No point being sorry, it was what it was.” After a little while, he continued quietly, “some people are just no good at having kids.”

“I know,” Michonne agreed somberly, her eyes welling up.

Daryl furrowed his brow as he looked at her and said, “wait, you’re not… you’re not thinkin’ you are one of those people? ‘Cause I don’t believe it for a second.”

She averted her eyes before answering, “I don’t know… maybe. Like I said yesterday, Andre is the best thing that ever happened to me; I’m grateful for the time we had together and would do it all again in a heartbeat. But I couldn’t protect him, and that’s what parents are supposed to do,” she finished with a few silent tears running down her cheeks.

“We fought together plenty, ‘Chonne, and I ain’t seen anyone better. If you couldn’t protect him it’s ‘cause no one could, I know it. That don’t mean you’re not a good mom.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Yeah, it is,” he said. “ ‘Chonne, look at me, please.” When she finally did, he continued, “did you love Andre?”

“More than anything in the world.”

“Did you take care of him? Hug him? Kiss him? Play with him?”

“Yes, every day.”

Daryl suddenly realized he was feeling frustrated. No, not frustrated, he was feeling angry. Angry that he hadn’t had any of the things he’d just described. Angry that this world they were living in had made Michonne feel she was a bad mother. Angry that he couldn’t make her see that she _wasn’t_ a bad mother. Because, if she was, then what in the hell had his parents been?

“Did you mistreat him?” he asked in an altered voice, adrenaline already rushing through his veins.

“What!? No, of course not, I…”

“Then you ain’t a bad mom,” he almost shouted. Without thinking, he stood up, turned his back to her, took his shirt off, and said, “ _this_ is what a bad parent looks like.”

Michonne rose to her feet and approached Daryl, drawing a sharp breath when she saw the numerous scars. She touched him ever so lightly just below the right shoulder and he flinched but didn’t move away. She was filled with sorrow and anger all at once. Also without thinking, she took off her top and brought her chest flush against his back as she wrapped her arms around his torso, wanting him to feel the warmth of her body.

When Daryl’s brain caught up to what he had done, he was surprised by Michonne’s reaction. He would have expected her to have been repulsed, or at least distressed. Instead, she had touched him, gently. She was hugging him, had her bare skin against his scars, he could feel her heart beating. He brought his hands to rest on hers as his breathing slowed down.

They didn’t know how long they stood that way in the living room. It felt like days at the same time as it felt like minutes. When they separated, they put their shirts back on before proceeding upstairs. He went into one of the bedrooms while she woke up their travel companion. Once done, she followed him into the room, where he was waiting for her. They fell asleep together, this time Daryl holding Michonne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: discussion of past physical and psychological abuse.
> 
> Please let me know what you think in the comments, I really appreciate your taking the time to do so :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those following along, I hope you are enjoying the story!
> 
> This is yet another short update, even shorter this time (sorry). The next one should be longer, though, so bear with me.

* * *

Daryl started waking up to the smell of something sweet. Coconuts perhaps? Yes, he thought it was. He could hear rhythmic breathing and feel a soft, warm body against his own. He kept his eyes closed a bit longer, enjoying the pleasant sensations. When he finally opened them, he looked down and saw Michonne snuggled up against his side, her head lying on his chest.

She stirred and slowly opened her eyes, bringing them to look in his deep blue ones. Before he could say anything, she smiled radiantly at him, looking so beautiful in his embrace that he would have fallen over if he hadn’t already been lying down. He had yet to recover from this when she gave him a peck on the lips and said, “good morning.” It took his brain some ten seconds to catch up, at which point his cheeks turned red and he managed to respond with a ‘good morning’ of his own, accompanied by a shy smile.

She sat up, stretched, and went into business mode. “So, are we going to try that place?”

He considered the question before answering, “think we should. Don’t see no point in just waitin’ around in here. You think we should ask him to drop us off in Macon and not at the tracks?”

“Um, that’s an idea,” she said. After considering for a little while, she proceeded, “I don’t think so, though. the road splits up from the railway for a few stretches, so we could miss anyone who’s still along it.”

“We walk, then.”

* * *

Lucas stopped the car above the train tracks so Michonne and Daryl could hop off. They all thanked each other, Lucas for the crucial help with finding the medicine Marissa needed, Michonne and Daryl for the hospitality, supplies, and ride.

“If the two of you don’t manage to find your people, you are always welcome at our house,” Lucas said. “But remember, we’re not trying to build anything. There will be no future generations as far as we are concerned, so there’s no need to prepare for them, and I know it’s not what most people are looking for.” 

“Noted,” Michonne said. “Thank you, and good luck.”

“To you as well. I hope it turns out to be a nice place where your group will be waiting for you.”

* * *

It had been a long day. Even though they'd had to dispatch a considerable number of walkers, they had managed to cover a lot of ground. They'd come across another sign for Terminus, so they at least knew they were headed in the right direction. 

The end of the afternoon brought with it a sudden burst of rain, which had them spreading out to look for shelter. It took some time, but eventually Michonne saw Daryl headed her way. 

“‘Chonne,” Daryl whispered and motioned with his head for her to follow him. They walked a bit until they arrived at a small, dilapidated cabin with three long-ago discarded corpses outside. They cleared the premises and secured the door as well as two small windows.

* * *

Daryl had to admit he’d enjoyed quite a few parts of the day, starting with the way he’d woken up. A few times he’d caught himself admiring Michonne’s katana skills in a new light. It was almost like she was performing a well-choreographed dance, her body looking spectacular while doing so, all her beautifully toned muscles on display.

* * *

Michonne also had to admit she’d enjoyed quite a few parts of the day, namely the start of her morning and every opportunity she’d had to watch Daryl take aim with his crossbow, which afforded the very best view of his deliciously strong arms. Well, the best view she’d had so far, at any rate.

* * *

The cabin consisted of a cramped area used as a mixture of bedroom/living room/kitchenette and a bathroom in one of the corners. Michonne stepped inside to change into dry clothes while Daryl, who didn’t see the need for such trivialities, did a quick scan of the space, finding nothing worthwhile. Once she came out, they each had an MRE for dinner before settling on the couch to go over their plans for the next day. Seen as there was only so much one could discuss about walking along train tracks, it was a quick conversation, so they soon fell into their companionable silence.

Michonne moved closer to Daryl and his body stiffened, a terrified look coming over him. He did nonetheless manage to turn her way when she placed her hand on his and said, “I liked waking up with you.”

His face flushed furiously, something to which Michonne was just about fully accustomed, and he answered, “me too.”

She moved even closer, brushed some of his hair away from his forehead and looked into his eyes, happy to see he held her gaze, even if he still somewhat resembled a deer in the headlights. She gave him time to move away, but, when instead his eyes darted down to her mouth before quickly coming back up, she cupped his face and brought her lips to his in a gentle kiss. Daryl started to relax and rested one of his large hunter hands on her thigh, so she deepened the kiss, pleasantly surprised by his skillfulness. God, she missed kissing! That was something you couldn’t do on your own. And he was so good at it she couldn’t help but moan into his mouth.

Michonne took the kiss up another notch and, sensing a positive reaction, straddled Daryl’s lap, facing him. He placed tentative hands on the small of her back as she wrapped her arms around his neck bringing their chests together, their tongues now practically tied in a knot. She could feel his excitement and started to move her hips back and forth, but it caused his breath to hitch and his body to tense up, so she immediately pulled away. He was looking to be this side of a panic attack, which had her concerned.

“Daryl, everything OK? Would you like to stop?” she asked in a hopefully-calming voice.

“No!” he quickly answered. “I mean… yeah, I’m OK. The ‘no’ was for the stoppin’.”

“OK, good,” she said, maintaining her tone of voice. “So, would you like to tell me what happened?”

“Nothing…” he said quietly, looking everywhere but at her. “It’s just that… I, um… well, I ain’t done this in a long time,” he finally blurted out, his face turning bright red.

“I see… you know, I haven’t either. Nothing at all since the turn.”

“Yeah…” he started. “Thing is… for me, was even before that... I, um, don’t wanna mess it up, but I ain’t got a lotta practice.”

“That’s not something to be ashamed of.” She briefly paused to consider how best to proceed before gently turning his face toward hers so she could look into his eyes. “As long as we’re both into it, there’s no right or wrong, we’ll figure out together what works for us.” She smiled suggestively before adding, “and I guarantee we’ll have a lot of fun while doing it.”

He gulped and nodded quite a few times before finding his voice to say, “OK.”

“We can take this as slow as you want, no need to rush. I’ll follow your lead,” she said as she started to move off his lap.

“No… um, stay,” he said as he put his hands on her hips.

This time he was the one to bring their lips together and they made out like horny teenagers well into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my first attempt at something in the general vicinity of smut, so I apologize for it not being all that good. Please let me know how I should improve the writing.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading my fiction, I hope you are enjoying it!
> 
> I know I said this chapter would be longer, but I didn’t feel like the festivities were a good time to go into the kind of stuff that’s inevitably coming up in the story, even if they aren’t going to be quite as festive as usual (or maybe because of it). I still wanted to post an update before the end of the year, though, so this is what I came up with. 
> 
> Happy celebrations to everyone and stay safe!! See you next year 😊
> 
> * There are two trigger warnings in the end notes.

* * *

Michonne felt like she’d travelled back in time to when she was in high school and had spent many an afternoon lip-locked with her then boyfriend. She’d followed Daryl’s lead the previous night, as she’d told him she would, and that’s exactly where he’d led her: a fairly innocent make-out session. And she’d enjoyed every second of it! In the middle of the apocalypse, she had found someone who seemed to be just starting their romantic life, and she was excited at the prospect of being invited along for the journey. It was almost as if she might be getting the opportunity to relive this special part of her life to balance out the hell in which the world currently found itself.

* * *

When Daryl had told Michonne he hadn’t had a lot of practice with physical intimacy, he hadn’t been completely forthcoming. While the statement had technically been true, the fact was he’d only had _one_ experience, and a sorry excuse for one at that. It’d been with a girl he’d thought was hanging around their place because of Merle. To his complete surprise, she’d cornered him one day and, before he’d known what was happening, she’d pushed him down on the bed, unzipped his pants, sucked him just until he was hard enough, and sank onto him before moving up and down a few times while rubbing herself. It had all happened so fast he’d barely managed to ask her to stop, which didn’t matter anyway, since she had simply ignored his request. She had then gotten up, straightened out her skirt, and walked away after saying ‘tell your cheating, piece-of-shit brother this is for Brenda’. Between this and the two less-than-positive reactions he’d gotten for his scars it was pretty clear he was better off on his own, so that had been that.

But with ‘Chonne it’d been completely different; he’d felt like a part of what was happening as opposed to just being a prop. Granted, they hadn’t gotten too far, but to him it had been a lot. And he’d enjoyed every second of it! What’s more, she had also seemed to like it. After a while, he’d started to loosen up and to become aware of her reactions, so he’d decided to explore, finding a spot on her neck that elicited a particularly sensuous response. He, on his side, had discovered he very much enjoyed it when she breathed and moaned close to his ear.

And now he was waking up with his arms around her for the second time, a huge smile across his face. He felt her stir and knew they had to get going, but that was the very last thing he wanted to do. Maybe just a little bit more? He decided to try that spot he’d found and see what happened. “Mmmmmm” was Michonne’s reaction as she was roused by the pleasurable feeling, tilting her head to give him better access.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Mornin’,” he breathed against her skin before rearranging their bodies, so she was lying on her back with him above her, and shifting his attention to her collarbone, which earned him another moan.

“We should go,” Michonne pointed out with no resolve in her voice whatsoever.

“Uh-huh,” Daryl answered without stopping.

She hesitated for all of two seconds before abandoning all thoughts of what needed to be done and they ended up fooling around for a good hour or so.

* * *

They’d been on the road (or rather, track) for some time, talking a little about themselves with the occasional break to put down walkers. It was like the weirdest date in history.

“So, what _did_ you do before all this? Michonne asked. “I assume Zach, rest his soul, didn’t actually get it right?”

“Nah, didn’t even come close,” Daryl started. “Truth is I didn’t do nothin’… odd jobs here and there when we needed money, hunted some… mostly followed Merle’s drunk ass around, just scrapin’ by,” he said looking down. “Wish I done more.”

Michonne didn’t quite know how to respond. She couldn’t care less about what he used, or didn’t use, to do. But she had to admit she’d have judged him before; she wouldn’t have been able to look past the stereotype. And that would’ve caused her to miss out on meeting an amazing person. It would appear zombie apocalypses were great for putting things into perspective. 

“You know none of that matters now, right? Didn’t mean you were any less before either, people were just too quick to assume the worst about everyone else. I’d say a lot of your past experiences actually benefit you now.”

“I dunno…” he looked uncertainly at her. “The girl we met; I think she said somethin’ like that.”

“Marissa? Really?” Michonne asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Yeah. She said I was ‘desirable’. Used some fancy words, sounded like a tv show one of Merle’s women liked to watch. Fuckin’ nightmare tryin’ to get the remote from her.” 

Michonne racked her brain trying to think of what Daryl could possibly be talking about and then it hit her. “You mean bachelor?” she asked, sounding tickled. 

“Yeah, I think that was it. Said you were one too, but she changed the word a little. She made it sound like a good thing,” Daryl said. “ _You_ I can see…” he trailed, turning red.

“And why is it that you think it’s true for me but not for you?”

At that he stopped, the shade of red on his face moving up to crimson, looking positively terrified at having to answer the question. He faced down, shifted on his feet, and spoke in a low tone, almost mumbling, “you’re so good with your katana… and you’re not afraid, you survived all alone.” The crimson deepened, going on dark purple at this point, as he added in a nearly inaudible whisper, “plus you’re so beautiful.”

Michonne couldn’t help but gently move Daryl’s head upward so she could look intently into his eyes before bringing their lips together as she entangled her fingers in his hair. After some time, however, they heard the familiar growling and broke the kiss with exasperated sighs before disposing of the inconvenient walkers.

“And how can you possibly conclude you’re not just as ‘desirable’ as you consider me to be?” Michonne resumed the conversation as if there had been no interruption. “You’re deadly with your crossbow, you hunt, fish, you’re an excellent tracker… I’m seeing a lot more qualities in you then in me.” She approached him in a conspiratorial manner and said, “plus, I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she slowly ran her hand up from his wrist all the way to his shoulder, following the motion with her eyes, which ended up looking directly into his, before she broke their gaze and brought her lips close to his ear to whisper, “you’re damn hot.”

For a second there she was worried she’d gone too far, as she was pretty sure all his blood flow had been directed to his face. Some of it might have gone a bit lower; she didn’t want to ogle, so she wasn’t sure. When he seemed to slowly start regaining control of his body, she felt it was safe enough to turn around and give him some privacy to recover. During the not-so-short time it had taken him to do that Michonne put down some more dead, which for once had shown up at an opportune time. 

“What did _you_ do before?” Daryl asked, obviously trying to shift the conversation, as they resumed their walk.

“I was a lawyer.”

“Lawyer?” he sounded surprised. “You don’t look like one.”

“Really? And what does a lawyer look like?” she asked sounding amused.

“A greasy weasel tryin’ to take advantage of people,” he answered. “No offense,” he added.

“None taken. There did seem to be a lot of those in the profession, so I can see how you might have gotten that impression.” she said as she chuckled. "I was a prosecutor.”

“Ah, so you was on the opposite side of Merle even then.”

“Merle was arrested?” Michonne asked, not sounding surprised in the least.

“Let’s say he got himself into a spot of trouble more than a couple times.”

“I can imagine. I don’t think we would have crossed paths, though. At least I hope not.”

“How come?”

She paused when she realized the implications of her answering the question and censured herself for not being more sensitive in a conversation around this topic. She’d already suspected parental abuse from Daryl’s behavior and one or two things he’d said, but that hadn’t kept her from being horrified two nights prior when he’d shown her his scars. The things people were capable of doing to each other always disturbed her, no matter how many times and variations she saw. She could imagine that, for someone who had actually lived through it, discussing abuse might not be something they’d be comfortable with, even if it was just in general terms, so she decided to give a vague answer and only go into detail if he prodded.

“I worked with more serious crimes, which, from what you said, doesn’t sound like what Merle got up to.”

“No. Merle was a dickhead, and he did a lotta stupid things, but never nothin’ real bad. At least nothin’ he told me about,” he pondered, and then shook his head, concluding his brother hadn’t really been a bad person, so he wouldn’t have gone down that path. “So, you worked with stuff like murder?”

“Yeah,” she answered.

“And what else?”

“Well… I was in the Crimes against Women and Children Unit,” she said with a discreet look at him and waited to take her cue from his reaction.

“Oh,” he said. It seemed as though that would be it but, after a while, he went on, “it musta been difficult.”

“It was.”

There was another long pause before he continued, “did you arrest a lotta people?”

“I would say so, we had a high conviction rate.”

“ _Good_!” he said with quite a bit of anger in a slightly raised voice.

She gave his back a brief caress before bringing her hand down to entwine their fingers as they walked on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings  
> \- past sexual assault  
> \- discussion of past physical and psychological abuse
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the update. Please let me know what you think, your comments always make my day :)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello to those who got this far, thank you for following along :)
> 
> So, once I finished this update and went back to read it through, I found that I went out of character, possibly very much so. I decided to go with it just the same, so I apologize in advance. Please let me know in the comments if I’ve veered too much off course. 
> 
> I’m putting the trigger warnings up here this time, as I think it might have come out a bit too graphic. They are:  
> \- Violence  
> \- Sexual assault

* * *

Evening came with Michonne and Daryl not being able to find an enclosed space for the night, so they made do with a spot in the woods, the usual rattling objects strung around the makeshift camp. They were sitting closely on the floor, facing each other so as to have the most extensive view of the area possible.

“If nothin’ happens, we should be there tomorrow, day after at the latest,” Daryl said.

“I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be like Woodbury,” Michonne said.

“Yeah, we gonna have to be careful.” He chewed the side of his thumb and, seeming to gather some courage, asked, “what if it’s a good place but our people ain’t there?”

Michonne had been pondering that very question since they’d started off for Terminus. Back in her early days at the prison she hadn’t exactly been thrilled when she’d found out they were turning her over to the Governor. She’d understood the reasoning, but it’d shown her quite clearly that she wasn’t considered a part of the group. A lot had happened since, however, and she now felt like she might belong. So, would she trade in the chance of finding people she’d grown close to, and fond of, for the possibility of a somewhat stable life? She took a deep breath and said, “We’ve all been through a lot together… I don’t think I’d be able to give up looking for them, not this soon.”

Daryl let out the breath he’d been holding, seeming thoroughly relieved. If she had said she’d have chosen to stay at this new place he didn’t know what he would have done.

“You?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Ain’t gonna be able to stop lookin’ neither. Like you said, we been through too much shit,”

“They’re your family,” she said with a warm smile as she reached forward to give his hand an affectionate squeeze.

“You are too,” he said as he turned pink, but holding her hand and her gaze all the same. She leaned in and he met her lips with his in a slow and gentle kiss. Things soon got out of hand for their precarious surroundings, though, so they broke it off.

“Right… um… would you like to take first or second watch?” she asked.

“It don’t make no difference, you choose.”

“You take first, then. Wake me up when it’s my turn.”

Michonne had barely gotten the words out when they heard screams. They looked at each other and knew they had to check it out because, whoever it was, they sounded terrified to an extent neither of them had heard before. They made their silent way toward the noise without delay, stopping just short of the edge of the woods. The horrific scene unfolding on the pavement had them stunned, but they quickly recovered and sprang into action.

* * *

Rick was sitting on a log by the side of the road as he kept watch over the car in which Carl and Beth slept. By his calculations, they should arrive at their destination the following day, and that would be not a moment too soon. If the signs were true, that is. He would have to be extremely cautious when approaching the community, specially having Carl and Beth with him. Their best bet would be to-

“Oh, dearie me… you screwed up asshole. You hear me? You screwed up!” Rick heard as the barrel of a gun was pressed against his right temple.

Four other guys came out of the woods; two walked toward either side of the vehicle as the others stood with firearms pointed at him. He recognized one of them from the group that had gone into the house where he, Carl and Beth had first stayed after escaping the prison. This was not good.

“Today is a day of reckoning, sir! Restitution, a balancing of the whole damn universe,” the one with the gun to Rick’s head continued. He recognized the voice as belonging to the guy that had been out on the porch. “Shit, and I was thinking of turning in for the night,” the thug laughed. “What do we have in that car?” He asked, and Rick’s brain jumped to protective mode, pumping even more adrenaline into his veins.

“A whole lotta fun, Joe” one of the men responded with a perverted cackle as they opened the doors and yanked the teenagers out of the old GMC, causing Rick to jump up, only to be pushed back down.

“Listen, it was me, it was just me!” Rick said desperately.

“Maybe it was _just_ you. But you didn’t _just_ strangled Lou in the bathroom, you also left the door open for him to come after us; caused another of ours to die. So, you alone won’t be enough.”

The disgusting lowlifes holding Carl and Beth threw the teens on the floor and lowered themselves to restrain their prey. One of the guys in front of Rick moved toward Beth.

“But we’re reasonable men, we can settle this,” Joe continued. First, we’ll have the girl; then, the boy; then, I’ll shoot you; and _then_ we’ll be square.”

The voice sounded closer to Rick’s ear; he could feel his captor’s head just behind his own. “Let them go!” he demanded, and Joe responded by further pushing the gun against his skin.

He was made to watch, along with everyone else, it seemed, as one guy held Beth’s arms above her head while the other roughly lifted her shirt and groped her breasts before wrenching off her pants and underwear. She screamed and thrashed in absolute terror, managing to kick his face, but it just seemed to widen his sick smirk. The guy pinning her arms moved to strike her, but the other stopped him. “Don’t! You’ll knock her out, and she ain’t no good like that. I wanna feel her squirmin’,” he said, unbuckling and lowering his pants. He forced her thighs apart, positioned himself, and that’s when the other guy’s body crumpled on Beth’s chest, pushing him sideways.

For a couple of seconds everyone seemed to freeze as they tried to understand what had happened. Then all hell broke loose.

The guy in front of Rick also collapsed, the result of an arrow to the forehead, but he barely noticed. All he could register was the revolting laughter all around, almost drowning Carl’s and Beth’s cries for help, and he could think of nothing other than getting to the two of them. “Let them go,” he said again before he head-butted Joe with the back of his skull without any conscious thought, causing the gun to discharge close to his ear. He was disoriented, his head invaded by a high-pitched noise, but soon recovered and launched himself at his opponent, starting a fistfight.

Meanwhile, Beth, who had somewhat recovered before her attacker, tried to push away the body on top of her as she kicked her legs wildly and continued to scream at the top of her lungs. The assailant was able to dodge her, though, and proceeded to try and regain control of the situation. 

At the same time, Michonne leapt from the woods and impaled the scumbag holding down Carl in much the same way she had done with the Governor, but this time she made sure her target was dead, without the possibility of returning. She helped Carl up and hugged him so tightly he found it difficult to breathe. “Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?” she asked anxiously as she moved him around to look for any injuries, rendering him a little dizzy. “I… um… I don’t think I’m hurt,” he said, visibly shaking. 

Daryl was right behind Michonne and went for the vermin trying to straddle Beth’s legs, knocking him out with his crossbow. He helped her extricate herself from the immobile corpse she was under and she immediately retreated toward the car. When Daryl approached her, she recoiled involuntarily. “It’s OK, Beth. It’s just me, Daryl, I ain’t gonna hurt you,” he said in a low, soothing voice. “Here,” he added as he handed her the pants that were lying within reach. He also took off his vest and outer shirt, offering the second item to her. She took the garments slowly, regarding them as if she’d never seen anything like that before. He put his vest back on and looked around, seeing Carl and Michonne just a few feet away.

Michonne looked past Beth and spotted the piece of shit that attacked her regaining consciousness. She ushered Carl toward Daryl and left the boy to his care before making her way to the groggy scumbag. As she secured him all eyes turned to the Rick and Joe.

Daryl saw that Rick had his arms pinned to his sides and moved to help but stopped in his tracks when Rick lunged at his opponent’s neck and tore off a piece of it with his teeth. Everyone seemed to freeze again as they watched copious amounts of blood squirt from Joe’s jugular and Rick spit out the flesh he’d ripped from his assailant. Rick scanned the scene with a crazed look on his face and made for the only perp left alive only to have his path blocked by Michonne.

“You had yours,” she said, indicating Joe’s body, still twitching on the floor. “This one is mine; you can watch if you want.” The rapist was looking between them with evident fear in his eyes as if trying to decide which weapon would be the least painful: the woman’s sword or the guy’s teeth.

Michonne and Rick stared each other down until he relented, “OK, you go ahead, but make it hurt.”

“Oh, I will,” she responded.

Daryl was looking worriedly between his brother and his… he was not sure what to call Michonne. In any case, their conversation didn’t sound good. He turned to Carl and asked, “you think you can stay with Beth in the car and, I dunno, just be there?”

“I… I think so… yeah,” Carl answered, still clearly shaken.

Daryl hesitated, but when he saw Michonne dragging the guy away, he decided he had to go after them. He gently helped Carl and Beth into the car before adding, “I’ma keep my eyes on you, don’t neither of you worry,” he tried to reassure them. “Also, best you don’t be lookin’ out there.”

He closed the door and hurried over to the where Michonne and Rick had the son of a bitch on his knees. As he approached, he could hear her speaking; she sounded like she was giving a lecture, her audience being comprised of a crazy guy covered in blood and a disgusting specimen kneeling in a puddle of his own urine. 

“(…) I was a firm supporter of our legal system; we had a society to maintain, after all,” she was saying, anger seeping into her voice and into her signature scowl as she looked straight at the scum’s eyes. “But guess what… there’s no society anymore, just me on one end of my katana and you on the other.”

She raised her sword, but never struck. Instead, she slowly lowered her arms as her breathing rate accelerated and her face showed signs of anticipation (maybe even excitement?) mixed in with the rage. “You know what? Cutting off your head just doesn’t feel like enough. I mean, why do you get a quick death when, by your own bragging, you’ve lost count of how many women you’ve terrorized?”

She saw the confused look he gave her and answered his unasked question, “I recognize your voice, we happened to be at that clinic a couple of days ago and had the displeasure of overhearing your repulsive boasting. Which brings me back to the matter at hand: what to do with you.” She gave him a twisted smirk.

“Back before the turn, after hearing so many accounts of heinous crimes, I often thought about how satisfying it would be to do to the vermin I put away the same things they did to their victims, so they could feel what it’s like to have their bodies invaded. Well, it looks like the end of the world is granting me that opportunity!” There was a look of sheer terror on the scum’s face as he begged her not to do it.

“Now, what should I use on you?” She scanned her surroundings until her eyes settled on her unsheathed katana. Her body arranged itself in a predatory stance and a manic smile contorted her face as she ordered, “Daryl, Rick, hold him down for me.” 

There was silence.

“‘Chonne?” Daryl broke it as softly and calmly as he could. She didn’t seem to register, just stared at the piece of shit as her chest heaved up and down. After a few seconds, he tried again, “‘Chonne?”

She finally looked around to see who was talking and saw Daryl hesitating to approach her. Once her body seemed to ‘unlock’ itself a bit and she slightly lowered her katana, he felt it was safe to inch forward.

“I, um… I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said cautiously. “Maybe… maybe we don’t do this?”

“What?!” she exclaimed incredulously. “Are you saying we let him go?”

“No, no, that ain’t what I’m sayin’,” he assured her in a placating tone. “We have to kill him. We can’t let him go ‘round hurtin’ people no more; and he’s gotta pay for what he did.” He took a deep breath before adding, “I just think maybe I should do it.”

“What?!” She exclaimed again.

“Just… just gimme a chance to explain,” he said. He felt like one of those hostage negotiators he’d seen in some movies. “Rick… maybe you go sit by the car? Keep an eye on Carl and Beth?” he addressed his brother, who seemed to have calmed down a bit; he was certainly calmer than Michonne. “Probably a good idea to wash your face too. There’s water in those bags we dropped over there,” he added, pointing at their gear not too far. 

As Rick moved away, Daryl turned to the pathetic form on the floor and knocked him out again.

“What the fuck?!” Michonne said.

“Just… just hear me out,” he requested. “He has to pay for what he done, so he has to die, no question. But all them things you were talkin’ about doin’? That’s the same as what he did. And maybe he should get them back; he sure as hell deserves it. But then someone’s gotta do it, and it ain’t good for whoever that is. That shit sticks with you.”

His words seemed to slowly register.

“Why don’t I just kill him, then? Why do you think you should do it?”

“Because, if I kill him, I’m just gonna be getting’ rid of a rapin’, killin’ piece of shit. But it’s personal for you, so if you do it, it will be for revenge, and that’s the shit that stays,” he reasoned. “In this world, that’s just how it is. It will happen with me too, and then you’re the one who’s gonna have to step in.” 

She seemed to be considering this, but remained hesitant, so he went on, “like I said, this shit stays, it chips away at you.” He looked into her eyes as he pleaded, “I just found you, don’t go away so soon.”

Michonne was overcome with a wave of emotions and was unable to contain the tears that decided to flow. Daryl pulled her to him and held on as she cried her anger, her sadness, her frustration, her disgust, her fear, her despair. He led her back to the car while keeping an eye on their prisoner, helped her sit down next to Rick and retraced his steps. Daryl dragged the scumbag into the woods, slapped him awake and put an arrow through his head as he begged for his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think . I really appreciate your taking the time to leave comments, they are a great incentive.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello to those who made it this far. Thank you for following along :)
> 
> So, I feel like I cheated a bit on this update, as I took a lot from the show. Sorry about that, I hope you still enjoy it. Let me know what you think in the comments, reading them always makes my day :)

* * *

Daryl searched the dead bodies, taking all weapons and ammunition before tossing the corpses to the side of the road. The sky had started its shift to brighter shades by the time he returned to find Michonne in the car with Carl and Beth, while Rick remained seated outside, staring at the ground.

“Thank you,” Rick said, still facing down, as Daryl joined him.

“What for?”

“Helping us. If you and Michonne hadn’t shown up when you did… well, I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

“Ain’t no need to thank me. That’s what we do, right? Look out for each other.”

“Yeah, it is,” Rick agreed, feeling comforted by the notion, even though he’d just gone through one of the most difficult situations of his life. “But I’m thanking you just the same,” he added, getting a nod from Daryl in response.

They remained silent for some time before Rick continued, “I heard some of what you said to Michonne. I wasn’t too sure, but, given the way I’m feeling now, I’m glad she listened to you.”

Daryl hesitated, looking up at the car window, before he got to his feet and motioned with his head for Rick to follow him. Rick did so and they went to sit on the log he had occupied the previous night.

“I figure they don’t need to be hearin’ us talkin’ about what happened,” Daryl said, indicating the vehicle. “What you did, it ain’t the same as what ‘Chonne was wantin’ to do,” Daryl continued as he looked seriously at Rick, trying to make sure his brother was not just hearing him, but also registering his words.

“I killed a guy by biting off a piece of his neck; it doesn’t get much more violent than that.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t have no choice. You didn’t have your gun, no knives, not even your hands, so you did what you had to do. Anyone would’ve done the same.”

“No, not anyone,” Rick disagreed.

“Well, most of our group would, it’s why we’re still around. It ain’t pretty, but you just gotta know you ain’t had no choice,” Daryl said. “That other guy, though, you and ‘Chonne had him on his knees. And what she was talkin’ about doin’? Stickin’ her katana up his…” Daryl trailed off as they both winced. “I mean, like I said, he sure as hell deserved it, but how do you not get at least a little messed up after doin’ that?”

Rick didn’t look entirely convinced that biting someone to death was all that different, but it seemed to Daryl he’d at least given the other man something to think about, so he left it at that for the time being.

“I’m gonna check on the three of them. If they ain’t sleepin’, maybe we oughta think about leavin’.”

Rick nodded and got up to follow Daryl before saying, “yeah, good idea.”

* * *

They’d been on the road for a few hours, having come across almost no walkers. A good thing, really, since none of them were fully present. Beth seemed not to be present at all, having gone into some sort of catatonic state. Daryl had been the only one able to elicit any kind of response from her, succeeding in getting her to walk with them. But putting one foot in front of the other appeared to be the extent of her capabilities for the moment, so he’d been travelling next to her in silence with Carl on her other side, Michonne and Rick a little behind them.

* * *

After a couple more hours, they found a broken Terminus sign.

“We’re getting close; be there before sundown,” Daryl said.

Michonne looked at the two men and motioned for them to follow her. They moved away from Beth and Carl just enough for the two not to follow the conversation.

“So, how are we gonna do this?” Michonne asked. “We can’t take Beth in with us.”

“Yeah, that won’t work,” Daryl agreed.

“Carl’ll stay with her. We can get them later if the place checks out,” Rick said.

“I don’t think that’ll be enough. Carl’s way ahead of his years, but she’s unresponsive. Fighting walkers while trying to get her to move would be next to impossible for us, let alone for him,” Michonne said. “If a herd showed up, their chances would be very slim; someone has to stay with them.” 

“You,” Daryl and Rick responded in unison looking at Michonne.

“Me? That doesn’t make any sense,” she started. “I’ll be the least useful if you need rescuing. I can’t shoot to save my life – literally.”

“Never mind us, you staying is best for Carl and Beth. You’re the quickest at killing walkers, we all know it. And you can do it quiet, _with_ the sword,” Rick said.

“That’s right,” Daryl agreed. “And there’s what you did before. You’re sure to know how to help Beth better than me and Rick.”

Michonne looked none too happy but relented, nonetheless. Daryl looked relieved that she was agreeing to stay behind. Rick looked confused; what did Daryl mean by ‘what you did before’?

When they got back to the teenagers, Rick said, “now we head through the woods, we don’t know who these people are.”

* * *

Some 45 minutes later they came across a small shack, which took all of 30 seconds to clear.

“OK, this is perfect,” Rick said. “We shouldn’t be too long,” he added, turning to Michonne.

“We’ll be here,” she responded.

Rick pulled Carl off to the side as Daryl crouched next to Beth, who had sat down with her back against the right wall, staring ahead of her at nothing in particular. She didn’t seem to register any of Daryl’s words, but he said good-bye just the same. 

Once Rick had finished his conversation with Carl, leaving his Colt with his son, he also said good-bye to Beth, before moving towards Michonne.

“Thank you for staying with them,” Rick said, looking intently into her eyes.

“There’s no need to thank me, just be careful,” she responded.

“You too.”

Rick turned to Daryl, who had regarded the whole exchange with apprehension, and said they should go, but Michonne stopped him with a light touch and said, “wait, Rick. Would you mind keeping an eye on them while Daryl and I step outside for a couple of minutes?”

“No, of course,” he answered, doing his best to conceal his surprise.

She beckoned to Daryl and he followed her. When they were a few yards out, she brushed his hair away from his eyes and they just looked at each other for a little while. She then brought her lips to his in a kiss that soon deepened, not from sexual desire, but rather from an overwhelming need to be as close to each other as possible.

When they pulled apart, she said, “be careful.”

“You too,” he responded. After seeming to gather some courage, he turned pink and added, “I need you here when I come back.”

“Don’t worry about me. Just make sure you _do_ come back,” she said. Not wanting him to leave on such a somber note, though, she gave him a mischievous smile before adding, “in one piece, mind you, so we can finish what we started.”

He went from pink to red.

* * *

After sneaking in and surprising the people of Terminus, Daryl and Rick found themselves being offered plates of barbecued meat by a guy named Alex, who was giving them a tour of the place. Rick, however, was busy noticing several things he recognized as belonging to his people – an orange backpack, riot gear, a poncho, and, finally, a pocket watch. He knocked the food out of Alex’s hands, grabbed the last item from the man’s pocket, put a gun to his head, and asked, “where the hell did you get this watch?” Daryl immediately pointed his crossbow at the woman behind the grill.

Getting no response, Rick repeated, “where the hell did you get this watch?”

“You want answers? You want anything else?” Alex asked. “You get ‘em when you put _down_ the gun.”

“I see your man on the roof with the sniper riffle; how good’s his aim?” Rick asked. “Where dja get the watch?”

Nothing.

“Where didja get the watch?!” Rick yelled.

“Don’t do anything! I have this! You just put it down! You put it down!” Alex yelled at the sniper, who hesitated briefly, but lowered his weapon. “You wanna listen to me,” he was now speaking to Rick. “There are a lot of us.”

“ _Where_ did you get the watch?”

“I got it off of a dead one, didn’t think he’d need it,” Alex finally responded.

Rick turned the man toward different people as he asked, “what about the riot gear? The poncho?”

“Got the riot gear off a dead cop,” Gareth, who had served as spokesperson when they’d first arrived, responded from behind Rick, causing him to turn around. “Found the poncho on a clothesline.” The man was standing there with his hands opened by his sides, unarmed.

There was a moment of silence as everyone looked at each other tensely.

“Gareth, we can wait,” Alex pleaded.

“Shut up, Alex,” Gareth said.

“You talk to _me_ ,” Rick ordered Gareth.

“What’s there left to say? You don’t trust us anymore,” Gareth pointed out calmly.

“Gareth,” Alex continued to plead.

“ _Shut_ up,” Gareth responded once again, raising one open hand to illustrate his instruction.

“Gareth, please.”

“It’s OK. It’s OK,” Gareth said, inching forward with his hand still raised. “Rick, what do you want?”

“Where are our people?”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Gareth said before closing his hand. Rick turned just in time for Alex to serve as a shield against the shot that was fired by someone behind him.

Bullets started raining all around Daryl and Rick as people ran left and right from the courtyard. The two of them also started running but were getting cut off every so often by shots fired at their feet, which had them constantly changing directions. It quickly became evident that they were being shepherded, one of the shooters even yelling “Get them off B!” at some point. They ran past a pile of bloody human skeletons and yells of ‘help’ before ending up in a warehouse-type space that looked like some kind of shrine, with names written on the floor next to personal objects and candles everywhere.

“What the hell is this place?” Daryl asked.

Rick looked around and saw ‘Never again. Never trust. We first, always.’ Written on the walls. He spotted a door and said, “there,” making for it with Daryl on his heels. The door was shut before they could reach it, so they went for the next one. Unfortunately, when they got outside, they realized their attempts to escape were futile; they were surrounded.

“Drop your weapons! Now!” Gareth yelled from the top of one of the warehouses.

Daryl and Rick looked around and then at each other but didn’t comply.

“ _Now_!” Gareth yelled louder.

They more or less tossed everything on the floor, wearing scowls that would have made Michonne proud.

“Go to your left. Train car, go!” Gareth directed.

They didn’t move.

“You do what we say, we don’t hurt you. Anything else, we start shooting at limbs and you end up in there anyway,” Gareth said, following with a few shots next to their feet to drive the point home.

They walked slowly until they were facing a few wooden steps leading up to the side door of a train car, Rick in front of Daryl.

“Open the door and go in,” Gareth continued issuing orders.

They did so and the door was locked behind them. Their eyes had barely began adjusting to the lack of light when they heard, “Rick?”

It was Glenn’s voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I decided to go beyond the first chapter, I had no idea what the story would be like, but I planned to end it just after Terminus, which should take me another two or three updates. 
> 
> I’ve since had an idea that would take it beyond that (not sure by how much), but it would include OCs and deviate from the show entirely, most likely for the remainder of the fic. Would anyone be interested in the longer version, or would it be better to wrap it up while I’m still in the general vicinity of the show? Thank you!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! I’m happy (and surprised) to find that the fic is actually bringing entertainment to some people. Since I’m also enjoying the time I spend with the story, I’m going to run with it. I hope you’ll come along :)

* * *

Glenn came into view first, soon followed by Maggie, Sasha, and Bob.

“You’re here,” Rick said, sounding somewhat surprised. “You’re here,” he repeated, this time in an undoubtedly affirmative tone. 

A woman Daryl didn’t recognize also approached. Rick did recognize her and was not at all pleased. Maggie looked at her before turning back to Rick and Daryl to explain, “this is Tara. She’s our friend; she helped Glenn find us.”

“Yeah,” Daryl said with a nod. “Now she’s a friend o’ ours.”

“Was all that shooting because of you?” Glenn asked.

“Yeah, but they weren’t trying to hit us, just shooting at our feet to make us go wherever they wanted us to go,” Rick answered. “When did you get here?”

They all looked at each other until Maggie broke the silence, “I’m not sure. It feels like we’ve been here forever but, in reality, I’d guess… 2 or 3 days?” she half-said, half-asked, receiving a general murmur of agreement.

“Did you get any idea of what this place is? We didn’t have time to see much,” Rick said.

“We didn’t either,” Glenn responded.

Rick moved towards the door they’d entered and peered through the cracks. “Doesn’t matter, we’ll make it out. They don’t know who they’re fucking with,” he said with absolute certainty.

“How?” asked Sasha.

“One way or another; but we will,” Daryl affirmed. He was getting back to ‘Chonne, that was for damn sure. Which reminded him, “Maggie, Beth is with us, she stayed behind with ‘Chonne and Carl.”

“Oh, thank God!!” she exclaimed before hugging Glenn.

“What about Tyrese, did you see him?” Sasha asked with evident hope.

“No, sorry,” Daryl answered.

“We’ll find him,” Bob told Sasha as he took her hand in his.

“OK everyone,” Rick started, “let’s turn whatever we can into weapons, so we’re ready for when they come.”

With that, there was all-around scrambling as people sharpened bits of metal, bent belt buckles, wrapped leather around their knuckles, and cut pieces of the train car’s wood frame.

“All right, got four of ‘em pricks comin’ our way,” Daryl warned.

“You all know what to do,” Rick said, as everyone took position. “Go for their eyes first, then their throats.”

A couple of seconds went by before a voice shouted from outside, “put your backs to the walls at either end of the car! NOW!!”

They all assumed fighting stance, looking intently at the door, only to have a smoke grenade dropped in their midst from an opening at the top of the train wagon.

“MOVE!!” Bob screamed, prompting people to rush away from the impending danger.

There wasn’t, however, enough space or time to escape the effects of the grenade, so the group was left disoriented. Daryl found himself being dragged outside by people in gas masks, but still succeeded in kicking someone, which caused another someone to knock him out. When he came to, his hands and feet were zip-tied, and he was gagged. He struggled against the ligatures as he was pulled to a kneeling position over an abnormally long metal sink, but to no avail, so he slowed down to take in his surroundings.

He could see Rick and Bob to his right and Glenn to his left, followed by four men he didn’t know, all leaning over the sink alongside him, all looking terrified. A big part of that, he was quite sure, was due to the scene unfolding in front of them – a guy cutting into what he very much hoped was a dead body with an electric saw, while another guy poured something over the corpse, both looking like they might be auditioning for a role in the Texas chainsaw massacre.

The people who had dragged in the kneeling men walked out as if what was going on was an everyday occurrence, leaving them to be dealt with by the two blood-covered individuals. The bald one picked up a baseball bat from a nearby table, swinging it back and forth, and the other got a knife, which he promptly began to sharpen. The whole thing was heavy on psychological torture. 

Rick was looking around to try and determine what their best chance of escape would be when the two guys moved over to the opposite end of the line and stood behind a terror-stricken man, who Rick recognized as one-half of the couple he’d met when he’d exiled Carol. They all watched as one guy knocked the young man out with the baseball bat before the other sliced his throat, pushing him forward so his blood would drain into the metal sink. 

That was the last straw, launching the captives into a frenzy of fear. There were muffled screams of “No!”, tears, thrashing, retching. Bob was frantically trying to think of what he could say to stop what was happening. Glenn could only think of Maggie, and how he had to find a way to prevent her from going through this. Daryl was beside himself with anger and sorrow, thinking of how he and ‘Chonne had only just connected. He was realizing how strong that connection had become in such a short time, at least on his side, and thinking that, if they didn’t find a way out of this newfound hell, he would never get to tell her so. Rick was thinking of how he needed to get back to Carl and, much to his surprise, this need, coupled with his anger, was actually helping him focus on the matter at hand.

As the two extras from Hostel made their way down the line, Rick worked to retrieve the sharpened piece of wood he had hidden up his right pant leg. Even though no one seemed to be paying him any attention, he turned sideways a bit to conceal his hands and got busy trying to break the plastic strips that bound his wrists. However, when he looked back up and saw there was only one person before it would be Glenn’s turn, he knew he wasn’t going to make it in time. Shit! They needed a diversion.

Enter Gareth.

“Hey guys, what were your shot counts?” He asked, holding a notebook and a pen.

“Thirty-eight,” the bald guy answered before delivering a resounding blow to the back of the next victim’s skull. Gareth wrote down the information as the throat-cutting followed.

Glenn heard movement behind him and shut his eyes, concentrating on the image of Maggie; he wanted her to be the last thing he saw.

The bat was halted mid-swing when Gareth asked the guy with the knife, “Hey! Your shot count?”

Following a brief silence, came the answer, “crap, man, I’m sorry. It’s my first round-up.”

“After you’re done here, go back to your point and count the shells. Kaylee won’t be gathering them until tomorrow,” Gareth said as he scribbled on the notebook. “Four from A… and four from D?” he asked, first pointing to the live men then to the dead ones.

“Yeah.”

Gareth was now directly in front of Rick and all the latter could see was the gun strapped to the former’s waist. It was so close, if only he could get that damn zip-tie to break already.

“You have two hours to get them on the driers, then we go back to public face,” Gareth started to instruct his men. “Now’s the time when we can get messy, but we need to dial it all in by sundown.”

“Got it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Two shots rang out, stopping things momentarily. Gareth got a walkie-talkie and spoke into it as the two men resumed their killing duties. But, once again, they halted mid-bat-swing, this time due to the sound of a third shot, which had them all looking around.

After four or five seconds a loud explosion was heard and the whole place shook, sending mostly everyone to the ground.

* * *

Michonne knew it couldn’t have been more than two hours since Daryl and Rick had left, probably quite a bit less than that, but it felt to her as if half a day had gone by. She didn’t know what was going on with her. She’d become so accustomed to handling these kinds of stressful situations, she was usually able to take them in her stride, so why was she so bothered?

Carl was seated next to Beth watching as Michonne paced around the room, which was driving him crazy, specially since it was so unlike her. He was just about to try and get her to calm down a bit when they heard the faraway sound of gunfire. A lot of it. Michonne ran to the window, Carl jumped up, and Beth didn’t so much as flinch.

“See anything?” Carl asked, joining Michonne.

“No,” she answered. “I think I’d better go have a look,” she went on, “will you be OK by yourselves for a little while?”

“Sure.”

“I won’t be long,” she assured him.

“OK. Just be careful.”

“You, too; stay out of sight,” she instructed before giving him a quick hug and walking out.

She moved silently through the woods until a new wave of shots made her halt. Daryl! Just like when she’d heard the first round of bullets, he was all she could think about. She knew he could take care of himself; but she also knew sometimes that simply wasn’t enough, no matter how skilled you were. She shook her head, trying to push away the terrifying images that kept popping into her head, and carried on. As she was approaching a set of train tracks, she halted again, this time due to a herd of about thirty walkers moving along towards Terminus. Towards Daryl. Shit!

While making her way back to the shack, she considered her options. The problem was, she didn’t have any good ones. She could leave Carl and Beth by themselves as she attempted a blind, solo rescue mission, keeping her fingers crossed she didn’t make matters worse, or she could stay put and slowly descend into insanity.

As their current hideout came into view, she heard engine noises, so she quickly ducked for cover. At the sight of a grey sedan coming, she unsheathed her katana, hoping against hope that Carl and Beth stayed hidden like they’d been told to do. The car stopped just outside the little shack and out the driver’s door came a white male in his twenties with a rifle strapped to his back. He went around to the other side, grabbed a duffel from the passenger seat, and walked away from the vehicle a little before setting the bag down. He opened it and pulled out what looked to be a firework tube, which he placed on the floor as a voice spoke out of a walkie-talkie he had strapped to his waist.

“Ten-minute count. You screw up, you’re on your own, Martin.”

“You don’t have to tell me, I wipe my own ass,” the man, presumably Martin, responded.

He grabbed another firework and set it a few feet away from the first one as he went on, “Alex didn’t get it, you see. I knew those two were bad news. I mean, come on, the redneck had a crossbow, and the guy with the cowboy boots looked like he should be in a mental institution.”

Michonne didn’t really hear anything after ‘crossbow’. Before she even knew what she was doing, she had jumped out from where she’d taken cover and had brought the blade of her katana to rest firmly against the back of the guy’s neck.

“Keep your finger off the button and drop it,” Michonne said, and the guy did so before putting his hands up.

“Listen, you don’t have to do this. Whatever you want, we got a place where everyone’s welcome,” Martin said.

“Shut up,” she ordered, as she moved her blade to his Adam’s apple so she could look him in the eyes.

“OK,” Martin agreed.

“The two men you just mentioned; what have you done with them?”

“Nothing,” Martin started to respond, “we didn’t do nothing. They’re fine, I can take you to see them.”

“ _Don’t_ try me,” Michonne warned in a deadly voice, pressing her blade a little harder into the guy’s flesh.

“OK, OK,” he exclaimed, as he inched his neck backwards. “We have them back at our place.”

“ _What_ did you do to them? I’m not gonna ask again,” she said, again bringing her katana to his neck, this time breaking the skin just a little.

“Nothing, I swear! They attacked us; we’re just holding them,” Martin said, sweating profusely.

Michonne caught movement in her peripheral vision and looked up, being so surprised by what she saw that she momentarily forgot what was going on. Noticing this, Martin made the stupid decision of trying to tackle her and almost got his head chopped off, soon finding himself not only back on the wrong side of Michonne’s katana, but now also staring at the business end of Carol’s gun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think. I appreciate your taking the time to leave comments, they are a great incentive and always make my day :)


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My two-day Carnaval holiday without Carnaval resulted in this short update. I hope you enjoy it 😊

* * *

Carl heard what sounded like a car approaching and his mind started to work. There was nowhere to hide, so, if anyone decided to come in, he would have to fight them. He took Beth by the hand and moved her to the corner where she would be behind him as he positioned himself to both cover the door and peek out the window. 

It was indeed a car and it parked close to the shack before a man got out from behind the wheel and went to retrieve a bag from the other side. He pulled out a tube thingy and set it on the floor as he spoke into a walkie-talkie, but Carl couldn’t hear what he was saying. Just as the guy finished placing another of the tubes on the ground, Michonne jumped out from behind a tree and touched her blade to the back of the guy’s neck, looking _very_ angry, but also, Carl thought, a bit scared. That was weird.

As Carl watched them talk, he debated whether he should go out and help Michonne. She didn’t look like she needed any help, and he was afraid of causing a distraction, which might give the guy a chance to overpower her, so he decided to stay put but ready to move at any sign of trouble. 

Not long after he had made his decision, he saw Michonne notice something to her right and the guy take the opportunity to try and take her down. ‘Stupid move,’ he thought as he rushed out the door.

* * *

“We’re close,” Carol said as she and Tyreese walked along train tracks towards Terminus, Judith in her arms. “I’m gonna get you both there; make sure you’re safe. But I’m not gonna stay.”

They had just walked up to another sign for their destination. Tyreese looked at it, then at Carol, then at the ground. They started moving again but stopped and turned around when they heard something. As expected, it was a walker, a woman with handcuffs hanging from one of her wrists. She made for them and Judith started crying. Tyreese reached for the baby as he said, “I can’t. Not yet.”

Carol passed him the baby, gave him a look, and said, “you’re gonna _have_ to be able to,” before darting to stab the walker in the head, falling to the ground with it from inertia.

When she looked up, she saw a small herd coming their way from the woods, so she whispered “more” to Tyreese and they quickly took cover behind the trees on the opposite side of the tracks, Judith having thankfully stopped crying. Since the herd kept advancing towards them, they started to move deeper into the vegetation, but everyone, dead and alive, stopped short at the sound of gunfire. Attracted by the noise, the walkers changed their course, so Carol and Tyreese waited for all of them to clear the area and resumed their trek.

“That gunfire. Could have been from Terminus,” Tyreese said.

“Someone was attacking them,” Carol said. “Or they were attacking someone.”

“Do we even wanna find out?” Tyreese asked.

They looked at each other for a couple of seconds before Carol nodded and said, “yeah.” She motioned with her head and added, “there’s another track due east, it will get us there. We’ll be real careful; we’re gonna get answers.”

With that they veered into the woods. After a while they heard more shots and exchanged a look of concern before quickening their pace, soon hearing voices. Carol signaled for Tyreese to stay behind with Judith and went to investigate. She came to the edge of a clearing and was surprised by the sight of Michonne with her katana against some guy’s neck. Michonne looked up at her, sporting an expression of even more shock than she was feeling, and the guy took the opportunity to try and take down Michonne, failing miserably.

Carol dashed to Michonne’s side and pointed her gun at the man’s face. The guy was so intimidated by the two of them he didn’t even think of trying anything else when two seconds later both women were again distracted, this time by Carl going over to add his revolver to the growing collection of weapons surrounding their newly acquired prisoner.

“Carol!” Carl and Michonne said together in happy voices, but nobody lowered their weapons.

“How did you get here?” Carl asked.

“I went back to the prison. It --”

“But it was destroyed,” Carl interrupted.

“Yeah, I saw it. Governor?” Carol asked Michonne.

“Yeah.”

Martin couldn’t believe he was kneeling on the ground with two guns and a sword pointed at him while these people chatted away.

“So, how did you end up here?” Carl asked.

“I found Ty close to the prison and we saw the signs for a place called Terminus, figured others might have seen them too,” Carol answered.

“You found Ty? Where is he?” Carl enquired.

“You two put your weapons away, I’ve got him,” Carol said. When they hesitated, she insisted, “go ahead.” Once Carl and Michonne had done what she’d asked, she continued, “Ty’s just a few yards down that way,” she indicated the direction with her head. “Carl,” she added to get his attention, “I’m going to say something, but I want you to try and stay calm, so you don’t alarm Ty too much when you go get him.”

“Oookaaay,” Carl said slowly, his brow furrowed.

“He’s got Judith with him.”

“What?!” Carl exclaimed. He was filled with so many emotions all at once that he felt like he was going to burst. His sister was alive! He sprinted into the woods, forgetting everything Carol had said, and sped up when he spotted Ty.

Luckily, Ty wasn’t holding any weapons and, before he was able to retrieve his knife, he recognized Carl’s hat. In another few seconds he was handing Judith to her brother, who hugged her so tightly she started to cry. Carl loosened his arms, apologizing to his sister, and kissed her head as tears ran down his cheeks.

“Thank you,” Carl said to Ty, who responded with a smile before steering the teenager back the way he’d come from.

When they got to the clearing, Ty saw Michonne at the door to a shack, keeping an eye on something just inside, and Carol pointing a gun at some guy’s head, who was kneeling on the ground with his wrists tied. Michonne gave another look inside the structure and walked up to Carl and Judith, running a hand over the baby’s head as she gave an affectionate squeeze to her friend’s shoulder. She then went over to Tyreese and gave him a hug as they said how glad they were to see each other.

“Ty, would you mind keeping an eye on him?” Carol asked, indicating their captive and offering the gun.

“Sure,” Ty responded.

Carol looked at Michonne and motioned with her head for the other woman to follow her. They walked away just a little before Carol started speaking in a low voice.

“I’m going to look for Daryl, Rick, and any more of our people who might be there.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Michonne said. “Ty and Carl will be able to watch over Beth and Judith.”

“Why hasn’t Beth come out? Is she hurt?” Carol asked.

Michonne sighed, looking troubled, before saying, “not physically.”

When no more information was offered, Carol said, “OK, that’s settled then, the four of them wait here. I also think we’d better get some information before going in.” She looked over at Martin before turning back to Michonne to continue, “I don’t want to waste any time, so…,” she trailed off. “Maybe you want to go inside for a little while?”

“No, I’ll stay,” Michonne responded. “It’ll probably be more effective with the two of us.”

“Ty,” Carol started when they were back by his side, “Beth is inside, she needs watching over. Would you mind taking Carl and Judith and going to stay with her? Michonne and I are gonna get some information about Terminus before going to get our people back.”

When Ty furrowed his brow and gave her a preoccupied look, she added, “please?”

“OK,” he responded, not sounding very pleased. He did, nonetheless, usher Carl inside.

Once Carol was sure Ty and Carl were out of earshot, she brought her face level with Martin’s and asked, “did you use to watch a TV show called ‘24’?”

“What?” he asked, sounding confused.

Michonne was also looking puzzled by the seemingly purposeless question.

“Did - you – use – to – watch – a – T - V – show – called - ‘twenty - four’? Carol repeated, sounding out each word.

“Um, yes.”

“Me too,” Carol said. “We’re gonna ask you questions about your place and you’re gonna answer them fast. If you don’t start speaking immediately after each question, you’re going to find out everything I learned from watching 24, and my husband really liked that damned show, so I learned a lot.”

Martin could tell the woman was serious, it was written all over her eyes. He looked from her to the one holding a fucking sword, gulped, and nodded.

“Good,” Carol said. “Let’s talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think, comments are always appreciated!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! Here’s another chapter, I hope you enjoy it 😊

* * *

Carol’s threat had been much more effective than she’d expected, getting Martin to fully cooperate from the get-go. In next to no time, they knew how many people lived in Terminus, the weaponry they had, the basic layout of the place, their leader’s name, and the reason for the assortment of fireworks. Most importantly, though, Carol and Michonne had learned that Daryl and Rick weren’t the only ones from their group who had been taken captive – Maggie, Glenn, Sasha, and Bob were also there, and all six had been alive when Martin had left the compound. He had even indicated the spot where their people were being held.

Carol wanted to ensure, as much as possible, that the information was true, so a couple of fingers had regrettably been broken, but nothing more than that. They didn’t want to attract walkers, after all, and it had been difficult enough to muffle the sounds of protest without adding blood loss or further bone damage to the proceedings. 

“I think we have enough,” Carol said.

“Yeah," Michonne agreed. "Let's get him inside and go."

* * *

Tyreese walked in after Carl to the sight of Beth sitting on the ground, looking to be somewhere else entirely. When Carol had said she needed watching over, he’d assumed she’d been hurt, but he couldn’t see any wounds. Something was definitely off, though. He turned to Carl with a questioning look, but the teen just sighed and put his head down before going to sit next to the girl. Ty furrowed his brow but didn’t say anything and went to take a seat by the window. He wanted to keep an eye on what was going on outside, which just got his brow more furrowed.

As Carl settled Judith on his lap Beth turned her head to look at the baby, who looked back and stretched her arms out. Seeing this, Carl offered his sister to the girl who’d taken care of her for so long, hoping Judith might succeed where everyone else had failed. Beth didn’t take the baby but did offer her hand for Judith to play with.

They all stayed quiet for a while until Carl broke the silence. “Where did you find her?” he asked Tyreese, referring to Judith.

“Oh… one of the kids handed her to me,” Ty answered, leaving it at that. As he’d told Carol, he didn’t want to talk about the girls, even if he couldn’t get what had happened out of his mind.

“Thank you for looking after her. Me and my dad saw her car seat on the floor, with blood on it. We thought…,” Carl stopped as tears started to run down his face again, which prompted Beth to briefly squeeze his hand. He was so shocked the tears stopped.

“Did you all get out together?” Tyreese asked Carl.

“No. It was my dad, Beth, and me; Michonne and Daryl found us last night. We were all going to Terminus, but they decided that my dad and Daryl should go first, to see what it was like. Then there was all the shooting, then that guy came, then you came.”

At this point Carol and Michonne came in with a Martin that looked the worse for wear. Michonne had him sit against the wall opposite the teenagers, checked that his wrists were properly bound, tied his ankles, and went about gathering everything needed for the rescue mission. Meanwhile, Carol motioned for Ty to follow her outside.

“We have what we hope will turn out to be good news,” Carol said. “Sasha, Maggie, Glenn, and Bob are also being held. Michonne thinks it’s best not to tell Beth just yet, in case they don’t make it back,” Carol added.

“Sasha’s alive?!?!” Tyreese exclaimed. He was so overjoyed by what Carol had said he didn’t even register that ‘not making it back’ was also a possibility for his sister.

“Yes, we think she is, but keep your voice down,” Carol semi-whispered.

“Sorry,” he responded.

“It’s OK. Let’s get back inside so Michonne and I can leave.”

“I’m coming with you,” Tyreese said.

“No,” was Carol’s curt answer.

“I’m coming with you,” he repeated in a hardened tone of voice.

She looked at him and let out an exasperated sigh. “Not two hours ago you couldn’t kill a walker,” she said. “There are people in there. Living, breathing people. And they won’t be happy to see us. Do you really think it’s a good idea for you to come along?”

They stared at each other for several seconds before Tyreese let out a sigh of his own, turned around, and headed for their shelter.

Once they were back inside with the others, Carol told Tyreese and Carl, “he tries anything, _anything_ , knock him out.”

“And stay inside,” Michonne added.

Everyone exchanged good-bye’s, as well as instructions to be careful, and the two women left.

* * *

Long after the men had been taken Maggie and Sasha were still yelling and pummeling the door. Tara was unsure of what to do, so she stood by in case one (or both) of the women needed some kind of assistance. When she saw Sasha halt and slide to the floor, she started to go to her, but Maggie, being closer, got there first, so Tara stood guard while they talked.

“Sasha, look at me,” Maggie ordered. “They will be fine,” she said resolutely, trying to convince herself as much as Sasha. “And they will come for us, so we’d better get ready to fight our way out of here with them,” she added.

“OK,” Sasha responded shakily before all three women went back to working on their DIY weapons. 

They became so absorbed in their mission that they all nearly had heart attacks when a deafening blast sent them flying across the quaking train car.

It took a bit of time for them to recover their footing, longer still to regain the ability to hear anything, at which point their sense was overwhelmed by what sounded like an all-out war. There were shots, smaller blasts, screams, walker growls, and running footsteps.

“What the hell?” Tara exclaimed.

“That’s our men, I know it,” Maggie said. “Let’s see if we can find a way to go join them.”

* * *

Michonne and Carol, wearing ponchos covered in walker entrails, were crouching by a chain link fence as they watched Rick, Glenn, Daryl, and Bob be dragged away from the train car where Martin had said their family was being kept. Michonne felt as if a knot was being tightened in her chest. She shook her head to try and keep it clear before following Carol for some time until they found the front gate, where they could see people putting down walkers.

“Look,” Carol whispered to Michonne as she handed over a rifle.

Michonne looked through the scope and saw a large propane tank by the entrance. She turned back to Carol to see her holding a firework rocket stick and nodded. They spotted a large horde of walkers moving towards Terminus and knew they had to work fast, so Michonne set up the rocket as Carol took aim with the rifle. As soon as Carol hit the mark and propane began to rush out, Michonne lit up the firework and they both covered their ears. A sizable explosion followed, sending bits of undead, people, and fencing all over the place, as well as generating an earsplitting shock wave. 

“You go get Maggie and Sasha from the train car and I’ll go look for the others,” Michonne said.

For a few seconds Carol seemed like she might object, but she ended up acquiescing and they went to join the increasing number of walkers headed for Terminus.

* * *

Tyreese ran to the window when he heard what sounded like a bomb going off.

“What was that?” Carl asked as he got up, struggling a bit with Judith.

“Some kind of detonation,” Ty answered. “There’s a lot of smoke, maybe I should go after them.”

“No,” Carl said. “It’s Michonne and Carol, they can take care of themselves.”

“Yeah…,” Ty said, not looking entirely convinced.

“I’m telling you. I bet they’re actually the ones responsible for whatever happened,” Carl added as he lined a large cool box with his sweatshirt and settled Judith inside, placing it close to Beth.

“Alright,” Tyreese gave in.

* * *

Everyone still alive in the slaughter room was on the ground wondering what the hell had happened. Everyone except Rick. He was working harder than ever on cutting through the plastic straps binding his wrists and all he could think of was killing every last one of these people.

As the three captors got to their feet, a number of questions about what was going on could be heard coming from Gareth’s two-way radio.

“You stay here,” Gareth told his men.

“These guys aren’t going anywhere,” the bald one said.

“Stay here until I know what’s happening!” Gareth shouted before walking out.

“So, we just sit here?” The guy with the knife asked.

The other one shrugged and said, “we’ve got a job to do,” before raising his bat behind Glenn’s head once again.

And, once again, he was stopped, this time by Daryl’s feet slamming into his knees, which sent him crashing to the floor as he howled in pain, bat landing several feet away.

The shorter guy was shocked into inaction for a few seconds, but once recovered, grabbed his knife and made for Daryl. Before he could strike, though, Rick had jumped up and sank the sharpened piece of wood into his neck.

Meanwhile, Daryl was trying to keep the other guy from crawling to his bat, but with his hands and feet tied up he was losing that battle fast. Seeing this, Rick promptly grabbed the butcher’s knife that had fallen to the ground and cracked the back of the guy’s head open.

“They got problems. We got a chance,” Rick said as he worked on removing everyone’s zip-ties.

“It sounded like a bomb,” Glenn said.

“Sounds like a damn war,” Daryl upped the ante.

“Right there,” Rick pointed at a table with a few melee weapons and they all picked one up.

“Who the hell are these people?” Bob asked.

“They ain’t people,” Daryl said.

As Bob went to put down the dead men, Rick said, “don’t.” Bob gave him a questioning look and he added, “let them turn,” before they took the same direction in which Gareth had left.

When they passed into the next room, they found half-butchered human carcasses hanging from the ceiling, metal containers heaped with pieces of human flesh, and knives of all shapes and sizes strewn over worktables. It was a scene straight from a slasher film, except it wasn’t a film.

“Cross any of these people, you kill them, don’t hesitate,” Rick said as some of them swapped their weapons for better ones. With one last look around, he added, “they won’t.”

They got to a door that led outside and saw a shipping container through the glass cut-out. There were a handful of walkers surrounding it, which was a clear sign that people were inside.

“If we run, we can get by ‘em, they’re distracted” Rick said, meaning the corpses.

“We gotta let those people out,” Glenn said, getting a reluctant look from Rick. He countered with a resolute one before adding, “That’s still who we are, it’s gotta be.”

Rick nodded his acceptance, and they went to kill the walkers. Once that was done, Daryl, Bob and Rick kept watch as Glenn opened the container. Unfortunately, their goodwill was squandered, as the only person to come out was a crazed man who was overtaken by a couple of walkers after almost getting them killed. Worse than that, they’d missed their opportunity and were now trapped behind one side of the freight car by a group of cadavers that decided to parade by the other, with people shooting from the opposite direction. No good deed and all that.

* * *

Once past what remained of the gate, Carol turned left and moved with the dead, knowing she would have to cover about a quarter of the perimeter, going by a few train cars before she got to the right one. Every now and then during her slow progress she would duck behind something to take a shot, hitting a good number of living bodies.

When Carol spotted the container she had been going for, she saw the door was blocked by walkers. Looking around, she decided to continue her measured movement through a courtyard of sorts. Once she reached a point she deemed far enough to give her time to get her friends out of the wagon, but not so far that the intended noise would go unnoticed, she put a string of firecrackers behind some broken pallets, lit it up, and made the fastest slow getaway she would dare.

A couple of seconds later the popping sounds rang loud enough to attract the walkers in the vicinity, which thankfully included most of the ones Carol needed to get rid of. She disposed of the few that were left and yanked the door open to find Maggie, Sasha and a third woman pointing bits of wood and metal at her.

“Carol?!?” Sasha and Maggie exclaimed in a happy shock, much in the same way Carl and Michonne had done. The circumstances were hardly ideal for any exchange of information, though, so Carol just shoved real weapons in their hands, said, “let’s move,” and did just that, leading the others towards the fence as they cut their way through a swarm of undead. 

* * *

Tyreese heard what sounded like a couple of walkers outside and ran to the window, closely followed by Carl, who was now able to jump up quickly since he was no longer holding his sister.

“We’re gonna have to –,” Carl started to speak, but stopped abruptly when he heard the sound of scuttling, which made him turn around while grabbing his gun. Tyreese did the same thing, only he went for a knife.

“Don’t!” exclaimed Martin, who was kneeling by the cool box with his hands around the head and neck of a now crying Judith. “Drop your weapons and kick them to me or I’ll do it.” When nobody moved, he exclaimed again, this time louder, “drop them, now!”

Tyreese looked at Carl and motioned with his head for the boy to follow the order, so they slowly placed the items on the floor as Ty said, “easy now, we’re putting them down, just be cool.”

“Good,” Martin remarked when they had done as he’d asked. “Now open the door and go outside.”

Tyreese looked at Carl before returning his eyes to Martin and appealing, “he’s just a kid.”

“Go outside!!” Martin yelled louder. When Tyreese and Carl still didn’t move, he said, “it’s just one twist,” and shifted Judith’s head up a little to emphasize his words. “Don’t make me do it!”

“OK, we’re going, just don’t hurt her,” Carl pleaded.

Tyreese opened the door and went outside ahead of Carl, trying to turn himself into a human shield of sorts for the teen. There were five walkers around and Ty immediately pushed one off to the side before kicking another on the chest, which sent it flying a little distance. Carl, who hadn’t given up all his knives, managed to dispose of one corpse, then another. When he turned around, Ty had stomped two cadaver heads and was driving another down a spike-shaped dead tree trunk. As they looked around to make sure there were no more walkers, they heard, coming from inside the shack, a loud, prolonged wail, followed by screams and the sounds of a scuffle. They ran inside to find Martin gurgling on the ground with a knife protruding from his chest, while Beth walked around with Judith in her arms and blood spattered on her face as she tried, and succeeded, to soothe the baby. 

* * *

When Rick saw that the group of people shooting at walkers was advancing past them, he decided to wait for everyone to go by and try to get the last person. He waited for his chance to get closer and took it when it came, ducking behind a car for cover. He was so intent on killing the living that he forgot about the dead, almost becoming prey to one, which Daryl took down at the last possible second. He nodded a ‘thank you’ to his brother, who responded in the same manner.

He concentrated again, this time with the added security of Daryl by his side, and, once he was sure the last of the shooters had gone by, he lunged for the man, wrestled the rifle out of his grasp, and shot not only him but all the others ahead of them. He didn’t even take aim, just fired continuously from side to side a couple of times, as he figured any injury would do the job of slowing down his targets for the walkers to feast on. The screams that followed were evidence that his reasoning had been correct.

He and Daryl rejoined Glenn and Bob and they headed in the direction they thought would lead them back to the women, stabbing, shooting, and bludgeoning their way through the mass of walkers. They were probably halfway to their destination when they spotted their people moving towards the outer boundary, so they quickened their pace and went after them. It didn’t take long for the women to notice them, but nobody stopped; everyone just kept on fighting until they got to the fence.

Those that had guns fired at some people who showed up on the roof behind them. Rick could see Gareth and aimed for his head, but only got his shoulder as he retreated along with his scumbag companions. Meanwhile, someone had thrown a piece of tarp over the barbed wire and everyone jumped over it, Rick remaining until the end to give cover.

Once they had moved a few yards and Daryl had caught some of his breath, he ran to Carol and hugged her tight, lifting her from the ground. He couldn’t believe his sister was back, he'd thought he would never see her again. Everyone else looked happy as well and Rick approached her.

“You did that?” he asked.

She nodded, on the verge of happy tears, and Rick hugged her. When they pulled apart, she said, “me and Michonne.” She finally looked everyone over and added, “where is she?”

“What didja say ‘bout Michonne?” Daryl asked with urgency as he ran back to Carol.

“She went in with me. She was going to look for the four of you while I got Maggie and Sasha,” Carol responded. “She didn’t find you?”

“No!” Daryl responded, seeming more desperate with each passing second. “You mean she’s back there? Alone!?!"

“I… I don’t know. I think so. Unless she gave up and decided to come out by herself,” Carol responded.

“She wouldn’t do that,” Rick said.

Daryl looked positively terrified now. He swayed slightly, then shook his head, grabbed the rifle from Carol’s hand, and took off back the way they’d just come.

“Daryl, wait!” Rick and Carol yelled, but he was already gone.

“Fuck!” Rick exclaimed. “You know where we left Michonne, Carl, and Beth? The makeshift cabin?” He quickly asked Carol.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Take everyone there,” he said, before running after Daryl.

Carol didn’t feel that going back to relative safety was the best use of her skills under the current circumstances, so she quickly explained to the others how to get to the shack and sprinted back to Terminus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think. I appreciate every comment, they are a great incentive and always make my day 😊


End file.
